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A collision between giant asteroids may have occurred in a neighboring star system called Beta Pictoris in recent years, and two different space observatories are helping tell the story.
Located just 63 light-years from Earth, the Beta Pictoris system has long intrigued astronomers due to its proximity and age.
While our solar system is estimated to be about 4.5 billion years old, Beta Pictoris is considered a “young planetary system” at 20 million years old, said astronomer Christine Chen, a research scientist at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. times.
“This means it’s still forming,” he said in a presentation at the 244th Meeting of the American Astronomical Society in Madison, Wisconsin, on June 10. “This is a partially formed planetary system, but it is not yet complete.”
Using the now-retired Spitzer Space Telescope in 2004 and 2005, Chen observed Beta Pictoris, which has two known gas giant planets, designated Beta Pictoris b and c. At the time, Chen and his colleagues saw several distinct populations of dust within the system.
“So I was very excited to observe this system again in 2023 using the James Webb Space Telescope,” Chen said. “And I was really hoping to understand the planetary system in much more detail, and we’re certainly doing that.”
Since Webb opened his infrared eye to the universe in 2022, scientists have been using the space observatory to peer through gas and dust to study supernovae, exoplanets and distant galaxies.
Comparing the Spitzer and Webb observations, Chen and his colleagues realized that the data they obtained 20 years ago occurred at a coincidental time when two of the large dust clouds disappeared.
Chen is the lead author of a study comparing the observations presented at the conference Monday.
“Many of the discoveries made by JWST come from what the telescope detects directly,” study co-author Cicero Lu, a former Johns Hopkins doctoral student in astrophysics, said in a statement. “The story is a little different in this case because our results come from things that JWST cannot see.”
The team believes the Spitzer data indicates that a pair of giant asteroids collided just before the telescope observed the system.
“Beta Pictoris is at an age where planet formation in the terrestrial planet region is still ongoing through giant asteroid collisions, so here we can basically see how rocky planets and other bodies form in real time,” Chen said.
Evidence of giant impact
When Chen and his team observed Beta Pictoris between 2004 and 2005, they were likely seeing evidence of a “collision-active planetary system” but had not yet realized it, he said.
In addition to the two known planets, previous studies have also detected evidence of comets and asteroids zipping through the young system.
As comets and asteroids collide with each other, they create dusty debris and help form rocky planets.
The impact that occurred just before the Spitzer observations likely shattered a massive asteroid into fine dust particles smaller than pollen or powdered sugar, Chen said.
The mass of dust created was about 100,000 times the size of the asteroid that killed the dinosaurs and was estimated to be between 6.2 and 9.3 miles (10 and 15 kilometers) wide, he said. The dust was then pushed out of the planetary system by radiation from the central star, which is slightly hotter than our sun.
Initially, astronomers thought that small objects collided and over time filled the dust clouds seen in Beta Pictoris. But the powerful Webb telescope could not detect any dust.
Although giant gas planets have formed in the system, it is likely that rocky planets will continue to form.
Astronomers are waiting to make more observations of the system to see if more planets will emerge. In the meantime, studying the system could help astronomers better understand what the early days of our own solar system looked like.
“The question we’re trying to contextualize is whether this whole process of terrestrial and giant planet formation is common or rare, and the even more fundamental question: Are planetary systems like the solar system that rare?” study co-author Kadin Worthen, a doctoral student in astrophysics at Johns Hopkins, said in a statement. “We’re basically trying to figure out how weird or average we are.”
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