International Research Team of Astrophysicists Discovers Six Ultra-Cold Debris Disks Planets and asteroids, red giants and brown dwarfs – there are all kinds of objects in our Universe. Debris disks are among them. These are belts consisting of countless dust particles and planetesimals, circling around one central star. “At least one fifth of [continue reading]
ESA’s Herschel space observatory has provided the first images of a dust belt – produced by colliding comets or asteroids – orbiting a sub-giant star known to host a planetary system. Kappa Coronae Borealis, based on Herschel PACS observations at 100 μm. North is up and east is left. The star is in the center of the frame [continue reading]
ESA’s Herschel Space Observatory has studied the dusty belt around the nearby star Fomalhaut. The dust appears to be coming from collisions that destroy up to thousands of icy comets every day. Herschel Fomalhaut Fomalhaut is a young star, just a few hundred million years old, and twice as massive as the Sun. Its dust [continue reading]