Hubble, Keck Observatory reveals lopsided disk around young star

Astronomers using the Hubble Space Telescope and W.M. Keck Observatory have found a lopsided debris disk around a young star known as HD 15115.

Washington, July 20 : Astronomers using the Hubble Space Telescope and W.M. Keck Observatory have found a lopsided debris disk around a young star known as HD 15115.

Seen from Earth, the edge-on disk resembles a needle sticking out from the star, say scientists.

Astronomers say the disk's odd imbalanced look is caused by dust following a highly elliptical orbit about the star.

The lopsided disk may have been caused by the gravity of planets sweeping up debris in the disk or by the gravity of a nearby star, said researchers Paul Kalas, James Graham, and Michael P. Fitzgerald from the University of California at Berkeley in their paper in The Astrophysical Journal Letters.

"The lopsided disk presents a host of new challenges for theorists," said Kalas.

Debris disks are produced by dust from collisions among protoplanetary bodies, which are the building blocks of planets. These dusty disks can be affected by planets nearer to the star, much as Jupiter's gravity affects asteroids in the asteroid belt.

Scientists say this discovery is consistent with models for planetary upheavals in our own solar system, where Neptune may have originally formed between Saturn and Uranus. Neptune was eventually kicked out to its present location by a gravitational dance between Saturn and Jupiter before their orbits stabilized.

"Therefore, we speculate that if such a planetary upheaval were occurring around HD 15115 at the present time, it could explain the highly asymmetric disk," Kalas said.

According to Kalas, this might happen through a powerful gravitational interaction between planets that kicks one or more planets into highly elliptical orbits, or even ejects them into interstellar space. When the planet's orbit becomes elliptical through a violent upheaval, the rest of the disk can be disturbed into an elliptical shape.

The team is now studying whether the gravity of a star known as HIP 12545, located about 10 light-years from HD 15115, might have been responsible for the disk's lopsided shape during a close encounter in the past.

HD 15115 and HIP 12545 are among nearly 30 stars that belong to the Beta Pictoris Moving Group. Moving groups are expanded clusters of stars believed to have a common birthplace and age that are traveling loosely together through space.

ANI