Astronomers using the twin 10-meter telescopes at the W. M. Keck Observatory in Hawaii have explored one of the most compact dust disks ever resolved around another star. If placed in our own solar system, the disk would span about four times Earth's distance from the sun, reaching nearly to Jupiter's orbit. The compact inner disk is accompanied by an outer disk that extends hundreds of times farther.
The centerpiece of the study is the Keck Interferometer Nuller (KIN), a device that combines light captured by both of the giant telescopes in a way that allows researchers to study faint objects otherwise lost in a star's brilliant glare. "This is the first compact disk detected by the KIN, and a demonstration of its ability to detect dust clouds a hundred times smaller than a conventional telescope can see," said Christopher Stark, an astronomer at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., who led the research team.
By merging the beams from both telescopes in a particular way, the KIN essentially creates a precise blind spot that blocks unwanted starlight but allows faint adjacent signals - such as the light from dusty disks surrounding the star - to pass through.
In April 2007, the team targeted 51 Ophiuchi, a young, hot, B-type star about 410 light-years away in the constellation Ophiuchus. Astronomers suspect the star and its disks represent a rare, nearby example of a young planetary system just entering the last phase of planet formation, although it is not yet known whether planets have formed there.
"Our new observations suggest 51 Ophiuchi is a beautiful protoplanetary system with a cloud of dust from comets and asteroids extremely close to its parent star," said Marc Kuchner, an astronomer at Goddard and a member of the research team.
Planetary systems are surprisingly dusty places. Much of the dust in our solar system forms inward of Jupiter's orbit, as comets crumble near the sun and asteroids of all sizes collide. This dust reflects sunlight and sometimes can be seen as a wedge-shaped sky glow - called the zodiacal light - before sunrise or after sunset.
Dusty disks around other stars that arise through the same processes are called "exozodiacal" clouds. "Our study shows that 51 Ophiuchi's disk is more than 100,000 times denser than the zodiacal dust in the solar system," explained Stark." This suggests that the system is still relatively young, with many colliding bodies producing vast amounts of dust."
To decipher the structure and make-up of the star's dust clouds, the team combined KIN observations at multiple wavelengths with previous studies from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope and the European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope Interferometer in Chile.
The inner disk extends about 4 Astronomical Units (AU) from the star and rapidly tapers off. (One AU is Earth's average distance from the sun, or 93 million miles.) The disk's infrared color indicates that it mainly harbors particles with sizes of 10 micrometers - smaller than a grain of fine sand - and larger.
The outer disk begins roughly where the inner disk ends and reaches about 1,200 AU. Its infrared signature shows that it mainly holds grains just one percent the size of those in the inner disk - similar in size to the particles in smoke. Another difference: The outer disk appears more puffed up, extending farther away from its orbital plane than the inner disk.
"We suspect that the inner disk gives rise to the outer disk," explained Kuchner. As asteroid and comet collisions produce dust, the larger particles naturally spiral toward the star. But pressure from the star's light pushes smaller particles out of the system. This process, which occurs in our own solar system, likely operates even better around 51 Ophiuchi, a star 260 times more luminous than the sun.
No. The Hubble Space Telescope was built on Earth and launched into space. It is about the size of a bus.
There have been over 300 probes sent into space as well as more than 1000 satellites orbiting the earth.
You can use a telescope or go into space itself!
Space exploration is where a group of astronauts go into space and explore. A space probe is a machine which is launched into space, transmitts pictures, data and other information - A space probe does not return home.
Space probes are sent out on missions to gather scientific data. They are unmanned, which means that they can go farther than a manned shuttle could.
Because probes can land on surfaces of planets and moons whereas a telescope can't.
it should be the hubble space telescope because it can see 10 times better than a normal telescope
Since the Hubble Telescope is in space, it avoids interference from the atmosphere.
On our ability to view space is limited because of all the particles in our atmosphere that filter or refract light as it passes from space to us. The Hubble Space telescope was built to be an orbiting Telescope that was out of our atmosphere. It was used to probe the earliest reaches of the universe. The Hubble is roughly 370 miles from the Earth's surface. The newest space telescope created by NASA is the James Webb Space Telescope. That will be far more powerful than Hubble and will be in orbit around the sun 1 Million miles from Earth.
It is speacial because It can observe the heavans much better than ground telescopes. It is also the largest and most versatile space telescope
There is less dust in space than earth.
No. The Hubble Space Telescope was built on Earth and launched into space. It is about the size of a bus.
The Hubble Space Telescope doesn't get affected by the Earth's Atmosphere. It also has the advantage of being in space so the quality and variety of images are a lot greater then any optical telescopes on Earth.
The Hubble Space Telescope is not as big as the moon. It is as big as the space shuttle cargo bay.
it can see further.
The (GMT) Giant Magellan Telescope .
"Kepler" is actually an observatory, rather than a telescope. It does, however, operate in space. "Hubble" is a telescope, in the true sense of the word and, again, it operates in space.