What could explain the shape of the cat’s tail of stardust in the planetary system Beta Painter a unique curved feature, different from that observed in disks around other stars?
Webb Space Telescope observations of the young planetary system Beta Painter they revealed a new elongated structure never seen before.
The team, led by Isabel Rebollido of the Center for Astrobiology (CAB) in Spain, used Webb’s NIRCam (near-infrared camera) and MIRI (mid-infrared instrument) to study the composition of previously discovered primary and secondary debris disks. detected by Beta Painter. The results exceeded their expectations and revealed a steeply tilted, a-shaped branch of dust cat’s tailwhich extends from the southwestern part of the secondary debris disk.
“Beta Painter it is the debris disk that has everything: it has a very bright and nearby star that we can study very well, and a complex circumstellar environment with a multicomponent disk, exocomets and two photographed exoplanets,” Rebollido said in a statement. “While it has ” There have been previous ground-based observations in this wavelength range, they didn’t have the sensitivity and spatial resolution that we have now with Webb, so they didn’t detect this feature.”
Even with Webb, he notes Beta Painter in the correct wavelength range (in this case, mid-infrared) was critical to detecting the cat’s tail, as it only appeared in the MIRI data. Webb’s mid-infrared data also revealed temperature differences between the two Beta Pictoris disks, likely due to differences in composition.
“We didn’t expect Webb to reveal that there are two different types of material out there Beta Painter“But MIRI clearly showed us that the material in the secondary disk and the cat’s tail is hotter than the main disk,” said Christopher Stark, a co-author of the study at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center. the disk and tail must be very dark, so we don’t see it easily at visible wavelengths, but in the mid-infrared it shines.”
To explain the higher temperature, the team deduced that the dust could be a highly porous “organic refractory material,” similar to matter found on the surface of comets and asteroids in our solar system.
However, an important question remains: what could explain the shape of the cat’s taila unique curved feature, different from that observed in disks around other stars?
Event that happened just a century ago
Rebollido and the team modeled several scenarios in an attempt to emulate the cat’s tail and reveal its origins. While more research and testing is needed, the team makes a strong hypothesis that the cat’s tail is the result of a dust-producing event that occurred just one hundred years ago.
“Something happens, like a collision, and a lot of dust is produced,” said Marshall Perrin, a co-author of the study at the Space Telescope Science Institute. “At first, the dust goes in the same orbital direction as its source, but then it also starts to spread out. The light from the star pushes the star’s smaller, fluffier dust particles faster, while the larger grains don’t move .” they move so much, creating a long tendril of dust.”
“The characteristic of cat’s tail “It’s very unusual and reproducing the curvature with a dynamic model was difficult. Our model requires powder that can be ejected from the system extremely quickly, which again suggests it is made of organic refractory material.”
The team’s preferred model explains the sharp angle of the tail relative to the disk as a simple optical illusion. Our perspective combined with the curved shape of the tail creates the observed angle of the tail, when in reality the arc of material only moves away from the disk at a five-degree tilt. Taking into account the brightness of the tail, the team estimates the amount of dust inside it cat’s tail It is equivalent to a large main-belt asteroid that extends over 15 billion kilometers.
A recent dust production event within the debris disks of Beta Painter It could also explain a recently observed asymmetric extension of the tilted inner disk, as shown in the MIRI data and seen only on the side opposite the tail.
(With information from Europa Press)
2024-01-11 22:38:30
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