About 20 years ago, astronomers observed a huge cloud of fine dust particles surrounding a young star just 63 light-years from Earth. According to recent observations Webb Space TelescopeHowever, the dust cloud mysteriously disappeared. Now, a new paper suggests that the dust cloud may have been caused by a violent event that shattered a large celestial body and spread its debris across the Earth. Beta Painter Star System.
Using new data from Webb, a team of scientists discovered that the energy signature emitted by dust particles around Beta Pictoris changes significantly, with some of the particles disappearing entirely. By combining Weber data with Spitzer Space Telescope In 2004 and 2005, scientists believed that a catastrophic collision between large asteroids about 20 years earlier had split the celestial body into fine dust particles smaller than powdered sugar. The dust may have cooled as it moved away from the star, which is why it no longer emits the same thermal signature that Spitzer first observed. The new findings were announced Monday at the American Astronomical Society’s annual meeting in Madison, Wisconsin.
Astronomer Christine Chen of the Space Telescope Science Institute and Johns Hopkins University first observed Beta Pictoris in 2004 using the Spitzer Space Telescope. This young star system is home to the first debris disk ever imaged around another star, and is known for being both close and bright.
When Chen joined Webb for 12 hours of observations, she wanted to go back and see the same star system that had fascinated her for years—Beta Pictoris. This time, however, the star system looks less familiar. “I was like, ‘Oh my gosh, these features are gone,'” Chen told Gizmodo. “Is this true? If so, what happened?
Using Webb observations, Chen and her team, who led the new study, focused on the heat given off by crystallized silicates, common minerals around young stars, and found no trace of particles previously seen in 2004 and 2005. trace.
“Every time astronomers look at the sky and see something, we always assume that everything is in a stable state and won’t change,” Chen said. “The reason we think that is because if you think about the specific moment you’re looking at, it’s very short compared to the age of these objects, so we just think the chances of you capturing anything interesting are slim. .
This is clearly not the case with the Beta Pictor galaxy, a star system believed to be between 20 and 26 million years old. It is relatively young compared to our solar system’s roughly 4.6 billion-year history. In the early days, star systems were more difficult to predict because Earth-like planets were still forming through giant asteroid collisions.
Therefore, the changes observed in β Pictoris are quite significant. According to astronomers, the dust cloud is 100,000 times larger than the asteroid that killed the dinosaurs. This suggests that the collision that may have caused the giant cloud to form may have involved a planet the size of VestaIt is the second largest object in the main asteroid belt, with a diameter of 329 miles (530 kilometers).
The dust then spreads outward through the star’s radiation, and the dust near the star is heated and emits thermal radiation that Spitzer’s instruments can identify. Weber’s new observations show that the dust has disappeared and has not been replaced, suggesting a violent collision.
“We believe that a large collision like this must have occurred in our solar system when it was of similar age as part of the formation process of the Earth-like planets,” Chen said. “We can observe the ancient Earth surfaces of the Moon, Mars and Mercury, and they There are craters on them, which tells us that impacts were much more frequent when the solar system was young.”
Through recent observations of Beta Pictoris, scientists can explore whether the formation processes that shaped the solar system were rare or more frequent throughout the universe, and how these early collisions affected the habitability of specific star systems.
“If there’s this giant collision and there’s a dust cloud spreading outward from the star,” Chen said. “You can imagine that this dust cloud may also encounter planets on its way to the planetary system and may rain dust onto the planet’s atmosphere.”
more: Beyond the Planets: The Solar System’s Weird Underdogs
