Astronomers are perplexed by the disappearing debris disk around a sun-like star that was thought to be a young solar system.
First seen in 1983, the star is known as TYC 8241 2652 1. It is located 450 light-years away and is about 10 million years old.
Until 2.5 years ago, the system was emitting large amounts of infrared radiation due to the circumstellar disc of rocky debris surrounding it.
“It’s like the classic magician’s trick: now you see it, now you don’t,” said research leader Carl Melis at the University of California-San Diego in a statement. “Only in this case we’re talking about enough dust to fill an inner solar system and it really is gone!”
At first, the astronomers thought their observations were somehow wrong.
“It’s as if you took a conventional picture of the planet Saturn today and then came back two years later and found that its rings had disappeared,” said study co-author Ben Zuckerman at the University of California-Los Angeles in the statement.
The findings are leading scientists to question their understanding of how planets form. Previously, such a large amount of dust was thought to be removed over hundreds of thousands or even millions of years.
As yet, there is no compelling explanation for what has happened.
“The disappearing act appears to be independent of the star itself, as there is no evidence to suggest that the star zapped the dust with some sort of mega-flare or any other violent event,” Melis said.
“In one case, gas produced in the impact that released the dust helps to quickly drag the dust particles into the star and thus to their doom,” he added.
“In another possibility, collisions of large rocks left over from an original major impact provide a fresh infusion of dust particles into the disk which then instigate a runaway process where small grains chip into oblivion both themselves and also larger grains.”
Their findings will be published in Nature tomorrow.
The Epoch Times publishes in 35 countries and in 19 languages. Subscribe to our e-newsletter.
