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(meteorobs) Comet belt... Epsilon Eridani
Greetings all,
The following is a cross-posting from our RASC list.... by one of our RASC
Kingston members in Hawaii...
- Cathy
Date: Wed, 8 Jul 1998 18:02:28 -1000 (HST)
From: Gerald Moriarty-Schieven <g.moriarty-schieven@jach.hawaiidot edu>
X-Sender: gms@iliahi
Subject: RASC List: "Kuiper Belt" discovered around Epsilon Eridani
Did anyone catch a brief news item on CNN Headline News today (Wednesday) about
"astronomers discovering a comet belt around a nearby star"? I'm part of
the group that made the discovery. (Finally I get a mention on CNN (but
not by name of course); my 15 seconds of fame I suppose. Hey, if it
ain't on CNN, it didn't happen.) The story was picked up by Associated
Press, CNN, CBS... I was even interviewed by the Ottawa Citizen. (Ah
fame... Could anybody send me a clipping after it appears Thursday?) It
appeared yesterday on Discovery Online (I don't know the web address).
You can see the full story in our press release at
http://www.jach.hawaiidot edu/~gms/kbelt.html.
To summarize, we used a new camera on the JCMT which images at VERY long
infrared wavelengths (450 and 850 microns), to image a nearby star
(Epsilon Eridani) which is only about 10 light years from us. We detected
a ring of cold dust emission surrounding the star, at a distance from the
star corresponding to the distance to Uranus/Neptune in our own solar
system. This dust (we believe) comes from a belt of cometary material,
much like our own Kuiper Belt. Inside the ring is significantly less
dust, almost certainly because there are planets (or something) sweeping
up the dusty/comety material. Nevertheless inside the ring is about a
thousand times more dust than there is in the inner part of our own solar
system. Since the star is fairly young, less than 1 billion years old, we
figure this is an analogue of the early solar system during the epoch when
comets were still bombarding the inner planets (hence the excess of dust
inside the ring). Since the star, which is nearly the mass of the sun, is
so close, we can see a great deal of structure in the ring (possibly due
to large planets stirring up the dust). Our findings should stir up a lot
of work on this system, which probably gives us a better chance to detect
planets than any other.
Have a look at the press release (and let me know if/where you might see
the publicity)! This was released to coincide with a meeting I'm
attending this week in Santa Barbara, CA, entitled "Protostars & Planets IV".
Gerald
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