A team of scientists from the Academia Sinica has discovered a near-transparent layer of dust in the near infrared marking a possible planet-forming disk around the young star RY Tauri, the country’s top research institute said yesterday.
The fluffy upper layer functions as a “special baby duvet” for forming planets and might be one of the key features for understanding how a variety of exoplanetary systems exist, Academia Sinica said.
The discovery was achieved during observation of the protoplanetary disk — a rotating circumstellar disk of dense gas surrounding a young newly formed star — around RY Tauri. Such disks are believed to be the sites where planets form.
Located about 460 light years away from Earth in the constellation Taurus, RY Tauri is around half a million years old, according to Academia Sinica.
The team, led by assistant research fellow Michihiro Takami from the Institute of Astronomy and Astrophysics, suspects that the fluffy layer observed in the disk is a remnant of the dust that fell onto the star and the disk during earlier stages of formation.
In most stars, this layer dissipates during formation. RY Tauri still has it, probably because of its youth, the team said.
According to the scientists, the layer may act as a special blanket to warm the inside of the disk for baby planets being born inside, which may affect the number, size and composition of the planets being formed in this system.
The finding was published in The Astrophysical Journal Aug. 1, 2013
Taipei and New Taipei City government officials are aiming to have the first phase of the Wanhua-Jungho-Shulin Mass Rapid Transit (MRT) line completed and opened by 2027, following the arrival of the first train set yesterday. The 22km-long Light Green Line would connect four densely populated districts in Taipei and New Taipei City: Wanhua (萬華), Jhonghe (中和), Tucheng (土城) and Shulin (樹林). The first phase of the project would connect Wanhua and Jhonghe districts, with Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall and Chukuang (莒光) being the terminal stations. The two municipalities jointly hosted a ceremony for the first train to be used
MILITARY AID: Taiwan has received a first batch of US long-range tactical missiles ahead of schedule, with a second shipment expected to be delivered by 2026 The US’ early delivery of long-range tactical ballistic missiles to Taiwan last month carries political and strategic significance, a military source said yesterday. According to the Ministry of National Defense’s budget report, the batch of military hardware from the US, including 11 sets of M142 High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS) and 64 MGM-140 Army Tactical Missile Systems, had been scheduled to be delivered to Taiwan between the end of this year and the beginning of next year. However, the first batch arrived last month, earlier than scheduled, with the second batch —18 sets of HIMARS, 20 MGM-140 missiles and 864 M30
Representative to the US Alexander Yui delivered a letter from the government to US president-elect Donald Trump during a meeting with a former Trump administration official, CNN reported yesterday. Yui on Thursday met with former US national security adviser Robert O’Brien over a private lunch in Salt Lake City, Utah, with US Representative Chris Stewart, the Web site of the US cable news channel reported, citing three sources familiar with the matter. “During that lunch the letter was passed along, and then shared with Trump, two of the sources said,” CNN said. O’Brien declined to comment on the lunch, as did the Taipei
A woman who allegedly attacked a high-school student with a utility knife, injuring his face, on a Taipei metro train late on Friday has been transferred to prosecutors, police said yesterday. The incident occurred near MRT Xinpu Station at about 10:17pm on a Bannan Line train headed toward Dingpu, New Taipei City police said. Before police arrived at the station to arrest the suspect, a woman surnamed Wang (王) who is in her early 40s, she had already been subdued by four male passengers, one of whom was an off-duty Taipei police officer, police said. The student, 17, who sustained a cut about
RSS