Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

  • News & Views
  • Published:

Planetary systems

Ageing dust fades away

Nature volume 401, pages 439–440 (1999)Cite this article

Fifteen years ago, astronomers discovered that many nearby stars are surrounded by solid material such as dust. Ever since, we have wondered whether this dust resembles the disk of raw material that gave birth to our own planetary system 4.5 billion years ago. On page 456 of this issue, Habing et al.1 report infrared observations of dust around stars of various ages. They discover that this dust disappears 300–400 million years after the birth of the stars, similar to what is believed to have happened to the dust disk in our Solar System when planets formed.

To understand the formation of our Solar System, and in particular the evolution of its solid material — we happen to be standing on a big chunk of it — it is useful to look at nearby stars that could also have solid material around them. Looking at these other systems is like taking pictures in the middle of a forest to figure out the life history of a single tree. By observing multitudes of stars at various stages, astronomers have pieced together the path of stellar evolution. The Hubble Space Telescope image of an ionized hydrogen region in the Eagle Nebula (M16) provides a spectacular glimpse of stellar evolution in action2, showing stars being born out of their cocoons. Although it is observationally more challenging, we are now starting to follow the evolution of the solid material around these stars as it develops into planetary systems.

This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution

Access options

Buy this article

  • Purchase on Springer Link
  • Instant access to full article PDF
Buy now

Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout

Figure 1: The Kuiper Belt of our Solar System (shown in red) harbours solid material (such as comets) in a disk extending beyond the orbit of Pluto.

References

  1. Habing, H. J. et al. Nature 401, 456–458 (1999).

    Article  ADS  CAS  Google Scholar 

  2. Hester, J. J. et al. Astron. J. 111, 2349–2360 (1996).

    Article  ADS  CAS  Google Scholar 

  3. Aumann, H. H. et al. Astrophys. J. 278, L23–L27 (1984).

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  4. Backman, D. E. & Paresce, F. in Protostars and Planets III (eds Levy, E. H., Lunine, J. I. & Mathews, M. S.) 1253–1304 (Univ. Arizona Press, Tucson, 1993).

  5. Lagrange, A.-M., Backman, D. & Artymowicz, P. in Protostars and Planets IV (eds Mannings, V., Boss, A. P. & Russell, S. S.) (Univ. Arizona Press, Tucson, in the press).

  6. Holland, W. S. et al. Nature 392, 788–790 (1998).

    Article  ADS  CAS  Google Scholar 

  7. Smith, B. A. & Terrile, R. J. Science 226, 1421–1424 (1984).

    Article  ADS  CAS  Google Scholar 

  8. Crifo, F., Vidal-Madjar, A., Lallement, R., Ferlet, R. & Gerbaldi, M. Astron. Astrophys. 320, L29–L33 (1997).

    ADS  Google Scholar 

  9. Dominik, C., Laureijs, R. J., Jourdain de Muizon, M. & Habing, H. J. Astron. Astrophys. 329, L53–L56 (1998).

    ADS  Google Scholar 

  10. Butler, R. P., Marcy, G. W., Williams, E., Hauser, H. & Shirts, P. Astrophys. J. 474, L115–L118 (1997).

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, IPAC, Mail Stop 100-22, Pasadena, 91125, California, USA

    Sergio Fajardo-Acosta

Authors
  1. Sergio Fajardo-Acosta
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Sergio Fajardo-Acosta.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Fajardo-Acosta, S. Ageing dust fades away. Nature 401, 439–440 (1999). https://doi.org/10.1038/46710

Download citation

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/46710

Search

Advanced search

Quick links

Nature Briefing

Sign up for the Nature Briefing newsletter — what matters in science, free to your inbox daily.

Get the most important science stories of the day, free in your inbox. Sign up for Nature Briefing