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The collision between the giant asteroids is believed to have occurred in a neighboring star system called Beta Pictoris in recent years, and two different space observatories are helping to tell the story.
Located just 63 light-years from Earth, the Beta Pictoris system has long attracted astronomers because of its proximity and age.
While our solar system is estimated to be about 4.5 billion years old, Beta Pictoris is considered an “adolescent planetary system” at 20 million years old, said astronomer Christine Chen, a research scientist at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore who has observed the system multiple times. times.
“That means it’s still forming,” she said during a presentation at the 244th meeting of the American Astronomical Society in Madison, Wis., on June 10. “It’s a partially formed planetary system, but it’s not finished yet.
Chen observed Beta Pictoris, which has two known gas giant planets called Beta Pictoris bac, using the now-retired Spitzer Space Telescope in 2004 and 2005. At the time, Chen and her colleagues saw several different populations of dust in the system.
“So I was very excited to observe this system again in 2023 with the James Webb Space Telescope,” Chen said. “And I was really hoping to understand the planetary system in much more detail, and we’re definitely doing that.
Since Webb opened its infrared eye to space in 2022, scientists have been using the space observatory to peer through gas and dust to study supernovae, exoplanets and distant galaxies.
By comparing the observations of Spitzer and Webb, Chen and her colleagues realized that the data they had captured 20 years earlier had occurred at a rather random time—and two of the large dust clouds had disappeared in the meantime.
Chen is the lead author of the study comparing the observations, which was presented Monday at the conference.
“Most of JWST’s discoveries come from things that the telescope directly detected,” study co-author Cicero Lu, a former Johns Hopkins doctoral student in astrophysics, said in a statement. “In this case, the story is a bit different because our results come from what JWST didn’t see.”
The team believes the data from Spitzer suggests that a pair of giant asteroids accidentally collided just before the telescope observed the system.
“Beta Pictoris is at an age where planet formation in the terrestrial planet zone is still taking place through giant asteroid collisions, so what we could see here is basically how rocky planets and other bodies are forming in real time,” Chen said .
Evidence of a giant collision
When Chen and her team observed Beta Pictoris between 2004 and 2005, they were probably glimmering evidence of a “collision-active planetary system,” but they just didn’t realize it yet, she said.
In addition to the two known planets, previous research has found evidence of comets and asteroids moving around the young system.
As comets and asteroids collide, they create dusty debris and help form rocky planets.
The collision, which occurred just before Spitzer’s observation, likely crushed the massive asteroid into fine dust particles that were smaller than pollen or powdered sugar, Chen said.
She said the amount of dust created was about 100,000 times the size of the asteroid that killed the dinosaurs, which was estimated to be 10 to 15 kilometers across. The dust was then pushed out of the planetary system by radiation from the central star, which is slightly hotter than our sun.
At first, astronomers thought that the small bodies were colliding and adding to the dust clouds observed in Beta Pictoris over time. But the powerful Webb telescope was unable to detect any dust.
Although gas giant planets have formed in the system, rocky planets are likely still forming.
Astronomers await further observations of the system to see if more planets appear. In the meantime, studying the system can help astronomers better understand what the early days of our own solar system were like.
“The question we’re trying to contextualize is whether this whole process of terrestrial and giant planet formation is common or rare, and an even more fundamental question: Are planetary systems like the Solar System that rare?” study co-author Kadin Worthen, a doctoral student in astrophysics at Johns Hopkins, said in a statement. “Basically, we’re trying to understand how weird or average we are.”
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