Un disco proto-planetario osservato con il satellite <em>Herschel</em>

Abstract

Herschel opened a new window on the study of the physical processes occurring when a star forms. Observations of the prototypical young star T Tau N revealed all the crucial ingredients known to be involved in star formation, namely: the parental cloud, the supersonic outflows driven by the forming star and the proto-planetary disk rotating around it. From the emission lines of the CN molecule we can estimate important disk properties, such as the disk size, inclination, and mass. The latter is roughly equal to the minimum mass of the solar nebula required to form the solar system, suggesting that the disk around T Tau N could form a planetary system like our own.