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October 2004
Planets in the making
The nearby main sequence star Beta Pictoris is thought to be a hotbed of planet formation. It is surrounded by a disk of dust and gas much like the one present in the early Solar System. New infrared observations from the 8.2-metre Subaru Telescope on Mauna Kea in Hawaii reveal how the dust disk's composition varies with location. Of particular interest are three peaks in the distribution where dust replenishment is taking place: they could be planetesimal belts like the asteroid belt in our Solar System, possibly stabilized by a giant planet orbiting at a radius of 12.5 astronomical units. (Nearer home, Jupiter is 5.2 au from our Sun.)
An early extrasolar planetary system revealed
by planetesimal belts in b Pictoris
YOSHIKO KATAZA OKAMOTO , HIROKAZU KATAZA, MITSUHIKO
HONDA, TAKUYA YAMASHITA, TAKASHI ONAKA, JUN-ICHI WATANABE, TAKASHI MIYATA,
SHIGEYUKI SAKO, TAKUYA FUJIYOSHI & ITSUKI SAKON
Nature 431, 660–663 (2004); doi:10.1038/nature02948
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Astromineralogy: Dust in another solar system
STEVE DESCH
A star surrounded by a disk of dust could be a solar system in the making.
Analysis of radiation from the dust suggests that there might be belts
of comets or asteroids, and even a planet, orbiting the star.
Nature 431, 636–637 (2004); doi:10.1038/431636a
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