Webb finds near-stellar system recently traumatized

There must have been some traumatic events in the Beta Pictoris star system during the 20th century.

This may not seem like a recent occurrence, but considering the universe is thought to be 13.8 billion years old, the concept that major cosmic events occurred within the lifetime of some living humans and can be studied is intriguing to astronomers. interesting.

Beta Pictoris is a nearby star with at least two orbiting planets located in the southern constellation Pictoris, about 63 light-years from Earth. It is visible to the naked eye in the southern sky. A team of scientists made the discovery using the powerful James Webb Space Telescope, a collaboration between NASA and European and Canadian space agencies. The Infrared Space Observatory has once again demonstrated its prowess in discovering details that have never been detected by other telescopes.

Weber showed off a new dusty feature on Beta Pictoris, curled like a cat’s tail. Now, the team is trying to figure out what’s causing this.

“While there have been previous ground-based observations in this (light) wavelength range, they did not have the sensitivity and spatial resolution of our current Webb telescope, so they did not detect this feature,” said the institute’s Isabel Rebolido (Isabel Rebollido) said. Spanish Astrobiology Center in a statement.

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Rebollido is the lead author of a new study on these findings, which will be published in astronomical magazine.

Previous telescopic observations of Beta Pictoris revealed that the system has two disks of debris caused by collisions between asteroids, comets, and other small planet-like objects. Planets are thought to have formed in such disks.

Using computer modeling, Webb researchers speculated that a cosmic event within the past 100 years must have created the dust curl.

The James Webb Space Telescope has taken a new snapshot of the Beta Pictoris system.
Image credit: NASA / ESA / CSA / STScI / Christopher Stark / Kellen Lawson / Jens Kammerer / Marshall Perrin

“Something happens – like a collision – and creates a lot of dust,” study co-author Marshall Perrin said in a statement. “Initially, the dust orbits in the same direction as its source, but then it also It’s starting to spread.”

Palin added that light from the star pushes the smallest, fluffiest dust particles away from the star faster, while larger particles don’t move as much, creating a long dust trail. The disk extends from the southwestern portion of the secondary debris disk.

Weber also revealed temperature differences between the two disks, which may indicate that they are composed of different materials. In visible light, the material that makes up the secondary disk and dust tail appears black. But with Weber’s infrared vision, it glows.

Taking into account the brightness of the tail, the team estimates that the amount of dust is comparable to that of large main-belt asteroids scattered across 10 regions. billion mile.

A recent collision within the system’s debris disk could also explain a feature discovered by the Atacama Large Millimeter Array in 2014. The telescope observed a cloud of carbon monoxide near the cat’s tail. Since the star’s radiation destroys carbon monoxide within about a century, this concentration of gas that remains may be evidence of the same event.

If so, the β-Pictoris system may be even more chaotic than researchers thought.