An astronomical discovery that has never been observed before: an unusual amount of dust around a star has mysteriously disappeared.
An astronomical discovery that has never been observed before: an unusual amount of dust around a star has mysteriously disappeared.
At a distance of about 450 light-years from Earth, in the direction of the constellation Centaurus, a disappearance event took place recently that surprised astronomers around the world. "It's like the classic magic trick of disappearing," says Carl Melis, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of California, who is leading the study. "Only that in this case it is enough dust to fill the inner solar system."
, since 1983 (no one had observed stars in infrared radiation before), and it continued to shine brightly in infrared light for 25 years. In 2009, its brightness began to fade, and in 2010, the dust disappeared. Astronomers observed the star twice in the same year using the Gemini Observatory in Chile, 6 months apart between observations. An infrared image from May 1 this year confirms that the hot dust has been gone for two and a half years.
"It's as if the rings around Saturn had suddenly disappeared," says Benjamin Zuckerman, a professor of physics and astronomy at the University of California, whose research is funded by NASA. "This is even more amazing since the dust disk was more massive than Saturn's coins. If we were to spread this amount of dust within the solar system, it would extend from the sun to the planet Mercury."
"The puzzling thing about the discovery is that we don't have a convincing model to explain what happened around the star," says Melis, from the University of California. "The disappearance event appears to be unrelated to the star itself, and there is no evidence to suggest that the star caused the dust to disappear through a megaflare or any other event."
According to Melis the characteristics of the star were supposed to be similar to our sun. "No such phenomenon has ever been observed in the many hundreds of stars studied by astronomers in the context of ring dust," says Zuckerman. "This disappearance is extremely fast, even on a human scale, and certainly compared to an astronomical scale. The disappearance of the dust is so bizarre and fast, that at first I just thought that our observational data had gone strangely wrong."
Norm Murray, director of the Canadian Institute for Theoretical Astrophysics, who was not part of the research group, says: "The history of the world of astronomy has proven that events that were not foreseen and are difficult to explain, can be used as those that 'change the rules of the game'."
Since there is so much dust swirling around the star, it is likely a place where new planets form, Zuckerman says. The fact that we do not have a model that explains what happened there around the star, requires astronomers to rethink the formation processes of young solar systems in the making. Apparently the dust was created by violent collisions of rocks, but that doesn't explain where the dust went. Was he somehow swallowed by the star?
"Although we have identified a number of potentially valid explanatory mechanisms, none of them are really convincing," says Melis.
Areas containing a lot of dust are also found in our solar system, such as the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. Another area is located near Neptune. Over the past 30 years, NASA's Infrared Space Telescope (IRAS) has discovered similar dust-filled regions surrounding stars similar to this star, but no disappearance has ever been observed.
The research is based on several observations around the world, including the Jimini Thermal Observatory in Chile, the IRAS, NASA's WISE telescope, NASA's Infrared Telescope in Hawaii, the European Space Agency's Herschel Space Telescope, and the Japanese AKARI satellite.
"We are lucky to catch such a sight", says Zuckerman, "these events may be quite common in space, without our being aware of it".
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Friends
Is there also a possibility that the dust was pushed outward by the radiation from the star?
If this is the case, then it can be verified by measuring the change in the disc diameter.
If it is a young star, is it possible that we caught it right in the process of its nuclear "start-up"?
That is, before that he was not a horn.
Friends
Is there also a possibility that the dust was pushed outward by the radiation from the star?
If this is the case, then it can be verified by measuring the change in the disc diameter
That was totally not me. B-a-doc.
Thank you Zvi,
Your words are correct, although they do not completely refute my words. But before we make a final judgment, I suggest we wait a few years to see if the dust disk will shine again.
jubilee
There is no purple source.
Gas discs that are around hot light sources (a star in this case) emit infrared gas because it is heated.
The earth also radiates in infrared (although a little because it is small) and this is bad even though it absorbs most of the radiation in the optical field.
In order for us to see the dust cloud, not only the cloud itself but also the infrared light source is required. I do not rule out the possibility that the cloud was absorbed or dispersed, but I believe that a simple explanation should be sought and the source of the light should be sought. It is possible that it is simply a double star in which one of the partners temporarily hides behind the other star.
Itzik C,
The meaning of the statement that the gas disk disperses after 10 million years, is not that there is a clock that measures 10 million years and as soon as they pass the disk disperses, but that there is a slow process in which the disk disappears on orders of magnitude of 10 million years. That is, in a typical way, after 15 million years you hardly see a disk anymore, while after 5 million years you see a swollen and full disk - the transition between the states is continuous.
Think about it this way
How long does it take a cup of coffee to cool down - 20 minutes let's say...
If you put a cup of coffee on the table, you will not find it completely boiling after 19 minutes, and on the other hand, after 21 minutes, you will not find it frozen - the transition takes a time that is of the order of those 20 minutes.
So maybe now they have reached the extreme. The same 10 million years?
Maybe someone just cleaned the dust?
What are the chances that a cold and massive interstellar gas/dust cloud relative to the same measured cloud (in a strong enough form), cruised through space in its own orbit and encountered the cloud in question, actually clothed it and thus for several years carried out this dressing while lowering the temperature of course?
There is nothing to do Yehuda - the world belongs to the young (less than 10 million years old)!
deer
If it is a young star and not an old one, then you are right
I entered the quoted article and there
About 460 light-years away in the constellation Centaurus, a thick disk of dust swirled around a young star named TYC 8241 2652 1
It is indeed a young star!
Good day for young people!
Sabdarmish Yehuda
I'm not saying that it's aliens... but it's probably aliens.
Yehuda,
It is not about material that was ejected from the star, but about material that was never part of it.
A star is formed (or "born" if you are on channel 2) when a large gas cloud collapses into a ball of gas that is the star and a disc of gas around it in which there is an order of magnitude of 1% of the mass. Since this disc is very light, it has almost no effect in terms of the mass and movement of the disc in the Keplerian approximation. This disc is fading away and after an SDG of 10 million years it is gone. The disk they saw here, disappeared in a much shorter time than expected.
See: http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v487/n7405/full/nature11210.html
A. Ben Ner,
Your proposal is certainly possible, but most models that talk about the creation of planets require much longer periods of time, so it is likely that it was not the formation of a planet that caused the gas to disappear. By the way, note that the detection of the disc shows that the system was probably seen from an angle close to being perpendicular to the plane of rotation. If this is indeed the case, locating the planet will be impossible since there will be no change in the planet's velocity and it will not be possible to locate it using radial velocity.
Two things were named after Freeman Dyson: one, (or one) - his house. And the second - a Dyson vacuum cleaner.
Assuming (hypothetically) that a planet was formed there, it is possible to try and measure the effect of the planet's movement on the star's movement.
If a cyclical fluctuation of the star's position is measured, this may be evidence of the existence of a planet in place of the vanished dust cloud. So it will be necessary to give an explanation for the speed of the process. If you don't find evidence for the existence of a planet - then it starts to get interesting.
You are just blind and stupid.
This is proof that we are not alone. This is a multi-national and multi-planetary operation to clean up a planet damaged in an intergalactic war.
The establishment is trying to hide the information so that people will be asleep and will not demand that Earth also take part and help the rebels who are trying to escape intergalactic occupation and looting.
The issue is known on Earth and it was the reason for the establishment of the United Nations when Earth was required by the Intergalactic Congress to establish a planetary government.
It's time to really get to know each other!!!
Why is there no picture of before? Only in this way can we be impressed by the magic.
Maybe it's a hard-working housewife who stumbled into the area by accident
deer
That is, I don't understand why the material ejected from a star will do so in a Keplerian way and exactly at the required rotational speed. After all, the material is supposed to spread in a straight line upwards!
good week
Sabdarmish Yehuda
Yael,
It's good to see that you're back to writing, if I'm not mistaken I haven't come across your article in a long time
Yehuda,
A disc around the star contains material that moves Keplerically around the star (to a good approximation). Therefore these disks are generally stable for a period of about 10 million years, for the same reasons why Saturn's rings are stable. Disappearance of a disc on a scale of a few years is therefore a strange and incomprehensible event.
The rings around Saturn cannot disappear because they revolve around Saturn. And their centrifugal force is equal to Saturn's gravitational pull,
but,
Matter thrown from a star vertically should do one of two options: - either leave the star if its velocity is greater than its escape velocity, or, fall into the star if its velocity is less than its escape velocity. In both cases it may disappear from the star. There remain only those whose material revolves around the star. Even there there is the possibility that a planet will be formed that will collect most of the material, so even then the dust cloud will disappear, but it will take a long time.
I would bet that in most new outbreaks the stuff should disappear in a relatively short time.
That's why I don't understand what the wonder is here.
good week
Sabdarmish Yehuda