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Planetary formation may occur more quickly than previously thought.
A team of researchers observed a young star surrounded by a circumstellar disk of dusty material using data from 1983, 2008, 2009 and 2010. Planets often arise from these disks. The star, which the team estimates to be 10 million years old, is 450 light-years from Earth in the constellation Centaurus.
The infrared emission patterns of the star's system, which can be used to measure how much dust the disk contains, were very similar in 1983 and 2008, but in 2009 the infrared emission had dropped precipitously, and in 2010 it was almost gone. The results were detailed in the July 5 issue of Nature. (Scientific American is part of Nature Publishing Group.) Researchers contributed from University of California Los Angeles, U.C. San Diego, California State Polytechnic University, University of Georgia and The Australian National University.
The artist's conception of the solar system, filled with dust (before) and empty (after), illustrates the dramatic change between researchers' observations in 2008 and 2010.
Astronomers had never before witnessed such a rapid disappearance of interstellar dust, and it challenges prior models of planetary formation. The research team has some hypotheses about the cause of the rapid change but has not come to any conclusions yet.
—Evelyn Lamb
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12 Comments
Add Commentvery advanced civilization vacuuming the dust to extract raw materials.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWas there a corresponding increase in solar wind or other radiant emissions at or near the primary during this period? Accretion alone would not account for such a rapid reduction within a solar system. It may also be possible that the initial measurements were of an extra-solar cloud which the system illuminated while passing through.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe least unlikely reason is usually the solution ... which is that there were errors in the original work. Also note that these images above are only art work.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAn extra-solar cloud which happened to have conformed itself to the star's gravitational field but somehow miraculously escaped it in two years? Frankly the vacuum cleaner theory's got greater merits than this!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe results were almost the same from the original work in 1983 and the 2008 review. How is that the 'least unlikely' reason?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thishow did these dusts disappear? Were they digested by the star in center?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMy first thought, Occam's annoying little razor aside.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisCould this be similar to BN Orionis? It's also thought to have lost most of a circumstellar dust cloud in a short time frame. Not this short, but not that much longer. See:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe FUOR characteristics of the PMS star BN Orionis inferred from new spectroscopic and photometric observations. Schevchenko, et al. (1997) Astron. Astrophys. Suppl. Ser. Vol 124, 1, 33-54
if dustbuster doesn't jump on this for use in an ad campaign then they don't deserve the geek dollars that await them, free for the taking.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHow do you vacuum in a vacuum? LOL
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSince the dust is detected in the infrared, if the star changes its output so that it does not warm the dust as much, the infrared signature would decrease. Where there any changes in the spectra of the star that would account for a drop in its ability to heat the material in orbit around it? I doubt the material just disappeared. It is just not radiating the way it used to.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisUnless a small black hole shot through it and cleaned it up without affecting the star.... doubtful.
http://news.uga.edu/releases/article/study-in-nature-sheds-new-light-on-planet-formation-070412/
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