Witnesses to a Creation

There may be, as the Book of Ecclesiastes says, "no new thing under the Sun," but there is definitely something new way out beyond it. Astronomers know that stars, and possibly entire solar systems, are constantly being born in the womblike gas clouds of interstellar space (TIME cover, Dec. 27). Now, they may have a chance to observe a delivery. Scientists from the University of Arizona and NASA'S Ames Research Center at Mountain View, Calif., announced last week that they have identified a discshaped object in the constellation Cygnus that is not only an evolving star, but could well be a sun in the process of forming its own planets. Their discovery could furnish scientists with an opportunity to study planetary formation and figure out how the sun's children--including earth itself--developed.

Fading Light. Astronomers have known of the existence of the star --dubbed MWC 349--since the 1930s. But it was not until this past year that researchers studying the star through the 2.3-meter (90 in.) infra-red telescope at Arizona's Steward Observatory and the 91-cm. (36 in.) infra-red scope in Ames' Kuiper Airborne Observatory, realized how unusual it was. In simultaneous observations, the scientists discovered that the star, already ten times the size and 30 times the mass of the sun, was surrounded by a great glowing disc some 224 million km. (approximately 140 million miles) in diameter.

"It's really spectacular," exclaimed

Ames Astrophysicist Edwin Erickson. The team leader, Rodger Thompson of Arizona, who announced the find at a meeting of the American Astronomical Society in Atlanta, declared the MWC 349 observations to be "a spectacular step forward in the theories of planet and star formation."

It could be. Astronomers generally theorize that stars and the planets that orbit them condense out of spiraling discs that are formed out of clouds of interstellar material. Thompson and Erickson believe MWC 349 is going through just such a process now. They think the star, which may be little more than 10,000 years old (the sun has been around about 5 billion years), is still developing. Some planets may have formed beyond the edge of MWC 349's luminous disc. They also believe more planets could form, closer to the star, as the disc condenses and cools.

MWC 349 will give astrophysicists a chance to test their theories. The intensity of light from the disc has been diminishing by about 1% per month, which suggests that material in the disc is being drawn rapidly into the star. Eventually, the disc will disappear and all that will be left will be the newborn star, and any planets it may have spawned. Such a process can sometimes take millions of years. But scientists will not have to wait that long to see how MWC 349's birth turns out. At the rate at which the disc is disappearing, it will be gone in a mere 100 years.

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