University of Victoria researchers are taking a new look at the stars, with the UVic team part of a groundbreaking discovery about planetary formation.  

The Canadian-led team of international astronomers made the discovery by leveraging a unique approach with tools from the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST). The researchers used the telescope to study PDS 70 B次元官网网址� a young star orbited by two growing planets.  

B次元官网网址淭his is like seeing a family photo of our solar system when it was just a toddler,B次元官网网址� says Dori Blakely, a University of Victoria PhD candidate who led the research. B次元官网网址淚tB次元官网网址檚 incredible to think about how much we can learn from one system.B次元官网网址� 

The system can be found 370 light-years away from Earth and provides scientists with a rare opportunity to see how planets form and evolve in their early stages.

Their research provides evidence for a process called B次元官网网址渁ccretionB次元官网网址� wherein planets wrangle material from their host star, pulling in mass from the gas and dust around them.  

By watching the planets surrounding PDS-70 grow and interact with their environment, their discoveries provide a clearer picture of how planets and stars grow together and helped scientists learn how planetary systems came to be B次元官网网址� including our own.  

B次元官网网址淪eeing planets in the act of accreting material helps us answer longstanding questions about how planetary systems form and evolve. ItB次元官网网址檚 like watching a solar system being built before our very eyes,B次元官网网址� says Doug Johnstone, an adjunct professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy and principal research officer at the National Research Council of CanadaB次元官网网址檚 Herzberg Astronomy and Astrophysics Research Centre. 

The young star, approximately five million years old, is surrounded by a pancake-like disk of gas and dust. In a large gap at the centre, the two new planets B次元官网网址� PDS 70 b and PDS 70 c B次元官网网址� are beginning to form. 

To get a clear view of the planets the team covered the telescope's near-infared image and slitless spectrograph (NRISS) with a mask covered in tiny holes. The holes allowed a tiny amount of light to pass through, essentially B次元官网网址渢urning down the young starB次元官网网址檚 blinding spotlight so you can see the details of whatB次元官网网址檚 around it,B次元官网网址� said Professor Rene Doyon, director of the Trottier Institute for Research on Exoplanets and principal investigator for JWSTB次元官网网址檚 NIRISS instrument. 

Their unique approach allowed the team to observe details that would have been lost in traditional telescope imaging and continues to demonstrate the power of the JWST as a tool for planetary study.