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Unique Carbon Monoxide Found in Star's Gas Ring

Astronomers found rare combinations of carbon and oxygen isotopes within a disk of gas and dust around the star, HD 163296.

The goal of these observations: They are seeking the content and mass of the disk.

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Recent observations of protoplanetary discs have perplexed astronomers because they did not seem to contain enough gas and dust to create the planets observed.
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The academic paper linked in the story had this:

'
With the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array we have detected the rarest stable CO isotopologue, Carbon-13 with Oxygen-17, in a protoplanetary disk for the first time. We compare our observations with the existing detections of Carbon-12 with Oxygen-16, Carbon-12 with Oxygen-18, in the HD 163296 disk.
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These stable isotopes are the result of one or two additional neutrons to C or O.

SAFIRE had reported detection of several atomic numbers not present at the start of the experiment. Those changes in an atomic number are a change in protons.

Neither the story nor the paper offers a hypothesis for how these rare isotopes came to be in this disk.

SAFIRE observed unexpected elements outside of a globe, not inside an object having the necessary pressure to sustain fusion.
These unexpected isotopes, among others,  in a star's 'protoplanetary disk' are interesting.


The disk is assumed to have only gravity drawing matter together so progressively a larger body with more mass is created. New isotopes will not arise during this accretion.

I do not know the sample size but this is the 'first time' they were detected.

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