This is what, for the first time, a team of astronomers observed using Chilean ALMA (Atacama Large Millimeter / submillimeter Array).
It is a fundamental stage in the emergence of the giant planets. The findings are published in the journal Nature on January 2.
The study the young star HD 142527 , at more than 450 light years from Earth and is surrounded by a disk of gas and cosmic dust, the remnants of cloud from which the star was formed.
The dust disk is divided into an inner and an outer by a discontinuity which is believed to have been formed by gas giant planets in formation that clean away their path as they orbit around the star.
The internal area of the disk and the star reaches the equivalent of the orbit of Saturn in the Solar System, while the exterior of the disc begins about 14 times farther away.
The outside area of the disc evenly around the star, but has the shape of a horseshoe, probably caused by the gravitational effects of the giant planets in orbit.
The theory predicts that giant planets grow capturing the gas from the external drive by means of currents which form bridges across the discontinuity of the disk.
The discontinuity in the dust disc was already known, but they also found the diffuse gas in the discontinuity and two currents of dense gas that flowed from the external drive through the gate, the internal disk.
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