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a star with spiral arms presented by

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science at nasa

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for more than 400 years astronomers have

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used telescopes to study the great

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variety of stars in our galaxy

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millions of distant suns have been

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catalogued

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there are dwarf stars

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giant stars

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dead stars exploding stars

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binary stars

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by now you might suppose that every kind

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of star in the milky way had been seen

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that's why a recent discovery is so

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surprising

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researchers using the subaru telescope

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in hawaii have found a star with spiral

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arms

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we'll call it 462 for short

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it's a young star more than 400 light

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years from earth in the constellation

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lupus the wolf

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462 attracted attention because it has a

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circumstellar disk that is a broad disk

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of dust and gas surrounding the star

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researchers strongly suspected that new

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planets might be coalescing inside the

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disk which is about twice as wide as the

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orbit of pluto

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when they took a closer look at 462 they

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found not planets but arms

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astronomers have seen spiral arms before

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they're commonly found in pinwheel

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galaxies where hundreds of millions of

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stars spiral together around a common

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core

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finding a clear case of spiral arms

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around an individual star however is

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surprising

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the arms might be a sign that planets

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are forming within the disk detailed

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computer simulations have shown us that

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the gravitational pull of a planet

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inside a circumstellar disk can perturb

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gas and dust creating spiral arms says

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carol grady an astronomer with eureka

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scientific incorporated who is based at

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nasa's goddard space flight center

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now for the first time we're seeing

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these dynamical features

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grady revealed the image to colleagues

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on october 19th at a meeting at goddard

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entitled signposts of planets

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theoretical models show that a single

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embedded planet may produce a spiral arm

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on each side of a disc

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the structures around 462 however do not

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form a matched pair suggesting the

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presence of two unseen worlds one for

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each arm

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brady's research is part of a five-year

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international study of newborn stars and

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planets using the giant 8.2 meter subaru

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telescope

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operated by the national astronomical

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observatory of japan

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subaru scans the heavens from a perch

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almost 14 000 feet above sea level at

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the summit of the hawaiian volcano mauna

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kea

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from there it has a crystal clear view

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of innumerable young stars and their

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planet-forming disks throughout the

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milky way

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what we're finding is that once these

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systems reach ages of a few million

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years that's young for a star

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their discs begin to show all kinds of

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interesting shapes says john wisniewski

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a collaborator at the university of

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washington in seattle

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we've seen rings divots gaps and now

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spiral features

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many of these structures could be caused

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by planets moving within the disks

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however it is not an open and shut case

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the research team cautions that

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processes unrelated to planets might

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give rise to these structures

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until more evidence is collected or

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until the planets themselves are

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detected they can't be certain

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one thing is for sure

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the milky way is still full of surprises