Rare molecule found in planet-forming disc for first time

Another major southern hemisphere radio telescope array, the Atacama Large Millimetre/submillimetre Array (ALMA), located in Chile, has proven essential in the making of another major astronomical discovery announced this week. The publishing of the new breakthrough (in the Astrophysical Journal Letters) came only a little more than 24 hours after the announcement of the discovery of gigantic radiowave-emitting “bubbles” in the centre of our galaxy, by researchers using South Africa’s MeerKAT radio telescope array. Again, an international team of scientists was involved, led by UK Leeds University PhD researcher Alice Booth. They were studying the protoplanetary disc of gas and dust around a young star designated HD 163296 (it is in a protoplanetary disc that new planets form), which formed during the last six-million years. It lies 330 light years from Earth.