{"id":931,"date":"2025-07-19T14:15:49","date_gmt":"2025-07-19T14:15:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mississaugaoffice.com\/?p=931"},"modified":"2025-08-05T21:07:24","modified_gmt":"2025-08-05T21:07:24","slug":"astronomers-just-casually-witnessed-the-birth-of-a-new-solar-system","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mississaugaoffice.com\/index.php\/2025\/07\/19\/astronomers-just-casually-witnessed-the-birth-of-a-new-solar-system\/","title":{"rendered":"Astronomers just casually witnessed the birth of a new solar system"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\n\t\t\"These\t<\/div>
Astronomers have observed a solar system being formed for the first time, as hot gas condenses into solid minerals around the baby star (Picture: ESO)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Astronomers have witnessed the creation of a solar system for the first time.<\/p>\n

Data captured by the ALMA telescope in Chile and the James Webb Space Telescope<\/a> showed planets forming around a star in the first record of its kind.<\/p>\n

The findings, detailed in a study <\/a>published on Wednesday, showed how scientists observed a gaseous plate being formed around a star – the first step in the birth of a new solar system.<\/p>\n

Professor Melissa McCure from the Leiden University in the Netherlands said: ‘For the first time, we have identified the earliest moment when planet formation is initiated around a star other than our Sun.’<\/p>\n

The new solar system is being formed around a baby or ‘proto’ star named HOPS-315 located some 1300 light-years from Earth.<\/p>\n

Scientists believe the unique sighting can paint a picture of how our solar system was formed, as well as help us better understand the planetary formation process.<\/p>\n

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\n\t\t\"This\t<\/div>
Jets of silicon monoxide blowing away from HOPS-315, a star located some 1300 light years from Earth (Picture: ESO)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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This is HOPS-315, a baby star where astronomers have observed evidence for the earliest stages of planet formation (Picture: ESO)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Merel van\u2018t Hoff, of Purdue University in the USA, who co-authored the study, said the nascent planetary system resembles what our solar system would have looked like when it was beginning to form.<\/p>\n

She said: ‘This system is one of the best that we know to actually probe some of the processes that happened in our Solar System.’<\/p>\n

A solar system is formed from solid material within meteorites, which condense and then bind themselves together.<\/p>\n

The pieces of matter begin to form tiny planets or ‘plantesimals’ before they form larger full size planets.<\/p>\n

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This chart shows the location of the nascent star HOPS-315 in the constellation Orion (Picture: ESO)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The first minerals around HOPS-315 were detected by the James Webb Space Telescope, before the ALMA Telescope was used to identify exactly where they originated.<\/p>\n

ESO astronomer Elizabeth Humphreys, who manages the European ALMA Programme Manager said she was ‘really impressed’ with the study.<\/p>\n

She said: ‘It suggests that HOPS-315 can be used to understand how our own Solar System formed. This result highlights the combined strength of JWST and ALMA for exploring protoplanetary discs.’<\/p>\n

Get in touch with our news team by emailing us at webnews@metro.co.uk<\/a>.<\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n

For more stories like this, <\/strong>check our news page<\/strong><\/a>.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n


\n\t\t\tComment now<\/title><\/span><br \/>\n\t\t\t<span class=\"comment-now__label\">Comments<\/span><br \/>\n\t\t<\/a><\/section>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Astronomers have observed a solar system being formed for the first time, as hot gas condenses into solid minerals around the baby star (Picture: ESO) Astronomers have witnessed the creation of a solar system for the first time. Data captured by the ALMA telescope in Chile and the James Webb Space Telescope showed planets forming…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":933,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-931","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mississaugaoffice.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/931","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mississaugaoffice.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mississaugaoffice.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mississaugaoffice.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mississaugaoffice.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=931"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/mississaugaoffice.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/931\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":938,"href":"https:\/\/mississaugaoffice.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/931\/revisions\/938"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mississaugaoffice.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/933"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mississaugaoffice.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=931"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mississaugaoffice.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=931"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mississaugaoffice.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=931"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}