New Delhi

Scientists have observed a disc of gas whirling around a star. Now this in itself may not be an uncommon thing as such a stage is reached when a star and the planetary system around it are forming. But this is the first time such a phenomenon has been observed outside our own Milky Way galaxy.

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This may point to the possibility that our understanding and model of star formation is widely distributed throughout the Universe.

The phenomenon was spotted by astronomers and researchers as it took place in LMC, the Large Magellanic Cloud. It is a dwarf galaxy about 179,000 light-years away from our galaxy.

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"When I first saw evidence for a rotating structure in the ALMA data I could not believe that we had detected the first extragalactic accretion disc, it was a special moment," says astronomer Anna McLeod of Durham University in the UK as quoted on the European Southern Observatory (ESO0 website).

“The frequency of light changes depending on how fast the gas emitting the light is moving towards or away from us,” explains Jonathan Henshaw, a research fellow at Liverpool John Moores University in the UK. “This is precisely the same phenomenon that occurs when the pitch of an ambulance siren changes as it passes you and the frequency of the sound goes from higher to lower.” 

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Henshaw, who is co-author of the study, was also quoted on the ESO website which published news about this study.

How does a star form?

Stars form in regions of space rich in molecular gas and dust. When dense clumps of the gas come together in large amounts, they get attracted to each other and collapse under the effect of their gravity thus kicking off the process of star formation. This protostar increasingly absorbs material from its surroundings which falls into it in a rather orderly manner similar to how water runs down a drain. It is during this phase that a disc of gas can be seen revolving around the star.

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When the star formation is complete, the remaining material continues revolving around the star, but it now begins to form elements of planetary systems, like planets, asteroids, comets and more.

(With inputs from agencies)