The Orion Nebula is teeming with newborn and young stars; many of these stars will develop planets but others will have their object-forming gas obliterated by nearby O-type stars.
Researchers found that protostars (extremely young stars) located within 0.1 light-years from an aggressive O-Type star will have their ring of gas and dust stripped away long before planets or other objects could form, a National Radio Astronomy Observatory news release reported.
"O-type stars, which are really monsters compared to our Sun, emit tremendous amounts of ultraviolet radiation and this can play havoc during the development of young planetary systems," Rita Mann, an astronomer with the National Research Council of Canada in Victoria, and lead author on a paper said in the news release. "Using ALMA, we looked at dozens of embryonic stars with planet-forming potential and, for the first time, found clear indications where protoplanetary disks simply vanished under the intense glow of a neighboring massive star."
Most Sun-like stars are born in "crowded stellar nurseries" like the Orion Nebula. Grains of dust and debris surrounding these baby stars can form into larger objects such as planets if left undisturbed. Once planets form the star tends to drift away from its stellar nursery-mates.
Researchers believed these monster stars are essential in the formation of the babies. These stars explode as supernovas, creating the debris that will be scooped up by the protostars for planet formation. These explosions are essential for starting a new cycle of planet and star formation, but are also deadly to planets in the process of forming.
"Massive stars are hot and hundreds of times more luminous than our Sun," James Di Francesco, also with the National Research Council of Canada, said in the news release. "Their energetic photons can quickly deplete a nearby protoplanetary disk by heating up its gas, breaking it up, and sweeping it away."
The team combined a number of observations to make their findings, including information from the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) .
"Taken together, our investigations with ALMA suggest that extreme UV regions are not just inhospitable, but they're downright hazardous for planet formation. With enough distance, however, it's possible to find a much more congenial environment," said Mann. "This work is really the tip of the iceberg of what will come out of ALMA; we hope to eventually learn how common solar systems like our own are."
WATCH:
Proplyds in Orion from NRAO Outreach on Vimeo.
