Misaligned and Warped Protoplanetary Disk around Triple-Star System

Astronomers using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) and the SPHERE (Spectro-Polarimetric High-contrast Exoplanet Research) instrument on ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT) have discovered a rare circumtriple protoplanetary disk with misaligned dust rings around the young hierarchical triple system GW Orionis.

They give two possible scenarios for the misalignment: either the disk was torn apart by the gravitational pull from the stars, or by a newborn planet.

GW Orionis is a triple-star system located approximately 1,312 light-years away in the constellation of Orion.

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Image credit: ALMA / ESO / NAOJ / NRAO / ESO / University of Exeter / Kraus et al.

This composite image shows both ALMA and SPHERE/VLT observations of the disk around GW Orionis. The ALMA image (blue) shows the disk’s ringed structure, with the innermost ring (part of which is visible as an oblong dot at the very center of the image) separated from the rest of the disk.

The SPHERE observations (orange-red) allowed the astronomers to see for the first time the shadow of this innermost ring on the rest of the disk, which made it possible for them to reconstruct its warped shape.

Source / Image Courtesy

Image credit: Kraus et al / NRAO / AUI / NSF.

Representation of the disk structure and stellar orbit of GW Orionis, as derived from the ALMA and VLT observations by Kraus et al. Orange rings are the (misaligned) rings seen by ALMA. The transparent surfaces correspond to the lower-density dust filaments that connect the rings and that dominate the emission in scattered light.

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“This planet has likely carved a dust gap and broken the disk at the location of the current inner and outer rings.”

The inner ring contains enough dust to build 30 Earths, which is sufficient for a planet to form in the ring.

How GW Orionis got it's rings.