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An old disk still capable of forming a planetary system

Nature volume 493, pages 644–646 (2013)Cite this article

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Abstract

From the masses of the planets orbiting the Sun, and the abundance of elements relative to hydrogen, it is estimated that when the Solar System formed, the circumstellar disk must have had a minimum mass of around 0.01 solar masses within about 100 astronomical units of the star1,2,3,4. (One astronomical unit is the Earth–Sun distance.) The main constituent of the disk, gaseous molecular hydrogen, does not efficiently emit radiation from the disk mass reservoir5, and so the most common measure of the disk mass is dust thermal emission and lines of gaseous carbon monoxide6. Carbon monoxide emission generally indicates properties of the disk surface, and the conversion from dust emission to gas mass requires knowledge of the grain properties and the gas-to-dust mass ratio, which probably differ from their interstellar values7,8. As a result, mass estimates vary by orders of magnitude, as exemplified by the relatively old (3–10 million years) star TW Hydrae9,10, for which the range is 0.0005–0.06 solar masses11,12,13,14. Here we report the detection of the fundamental rotational transition of hydrogen deuteride from the direction of TW Hydrae. Hydrogen deuteride is a good tracer of disk gas because it follows the distribution of molecular hydrogen and its emission is sensitive to the total mass. The detection of hydrogen deuteride, combined with existing observations and detailed models, implies a disk mass of more than 0.05 solar masses, which is enough to form a planetary system like our own.

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Figure 1: Herschel detection of HD in the TW Hya protoplanetary disk.
Figure 2: Model of the physical structure and HD emission of the TW Hya circumstellar disk.

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Acknowledgements

Herschel is an ESA space observatory with science instruments provided by European-led Principal Investigator consortia and with important participation from NASA. Support for this work was provided by NASA through an award issued by JPL/Caltech and by the US National Science Foundation under grant 1008800. This paper makes use of the following Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) data: ADS/JAO.ALMA#2011.0.00001.SV. ALMA is a partnership of ESO (representing its member states), the NSF (USA) and NINS (Japan), together with the NRC (Canada) and the NSC and ASIAA (Taiwan), in cooperation with the Republic of Chile. The Joint ALMA Observatory is operated by ESO, AUI/NRAO and NAOJ.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Astronomy, University of Michigan, 500 Church Street, Ann Arbor, Michigan 48109, USA,

    Edwin A. Bergin & L. Ilsedore Cleeves

  2. SETI Institute, Mountain View, 94043, California, USA

    Uma Gorti

  3. NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, 94035, California, USA

    Uma Gorti

  4. Division of Physics, California Institute of Technology, Mathematics and Astronomy, MS 150-21, Pasadena, California 91125, USA,

    Ke Zhang

  5. Division of Geological and Planetary Sciences, California Institute of Technology, MS 150-21, Pasadena, California 91125, USA,

    Geoffrey A. Blake

  6. Department of Astronomy, The University of Texas, 2515 Speedway, Stop C1402, Austin, Texas 78712, USA,

    Joel D. Green & Neal J. Evans II

  7. Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, 60 Garden Street, Cambridge, 02138, Massachusetts, USA

    Sean M. Andrews, Karin Öberg & Chunhua Qi

  8. Max Planck Institute for Astronomy, Königstuhl 17, 69117 Heidelberg, Germany,

    Thomas Henning

  9. Space Telescope Science Institute, 3700 San Martin Drive, Baltimore, 21218, Maryland, USA

    Klaus Pontoppidan

  10. National Optical Astronomy Observatory, 950 North Cherry Avenue, Tucson, 85719, Arizona, USA

    Colette Salyk

  11. Max Planck Institut für Extraterrestrische Physik, Giessenbachstrasse 1, 85748 Garching, Germany,

    Ewine F. van Dishoeck

  12. Leiden Observatory, Leiden University, PO Box 9513, 2300 RA Leiden, The Netherlands,

    Ewine F. van Dishoeck

Authors
  1. Edwin A. Bergin
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Contributions

E.A.B., L.I.C., U.G. and K.Z. performed the detailed calculations used in the analysis. J.D.G. reduced the Herschel data. S.M.A. provided detailed disk physical models and U.G. provided thermochemical models, both developed specifically for TW Hya. E.A.B. wrote the manuscript with revisions by N.J.E. All authors were participants in the discussion of results, determination of the conclusions and revision of the manuscript.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Edwin A. Bergin.

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The authors declare no competing financial interests.

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This file contains Supplementary Text and Data, additional references, Supplementary Table 1 and Supplementary Figure 1. (PDF 196 kb)

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Bergin, E., Cleeves, L., Gorti, U. et al. An old disk still capable of forming a planetary system. Nature 493, 644–646 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1038/nature11805

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