Though we all have differences, there’s one commonality that has prevailed for all of humanity: we are all floating on a rock, flying through outer space at over a million miles an hour.
Thanks to the rapid advancement of technology in the past century, we can observe much more of the universe than we ever thought possible.
The scale and sheer size of the universe make it impossible to truly learn everything, but it doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try.
Here's what's happening in space this week.
Using the James Webb Space Telescope, astronomers have discovered an asteroid belt outside of our solar system for the very first time.
Webb's latest target is Fomalhaut, a 440-million-year-old star located in the constellation Pisces Austrinus. While the relatively young star is certainly a marvel, it's the dusty ring system of debris surrounding it that astronomers are particularly interested in.
Astronomers used JWST's infrared cameras to study the star and surrounding disks, and found that they're much more complex than the asteroid belt in our own solar system. The system of dust and debris is comprised of three belts that stretch 14 billion miles from the star.
The largest ring made of dust was discovered in 1983, while the two inner belts had never been seen before prior to Webb's observations. According to NASA, the belts are the result of collisions of large bodies.
“I would describe Fomalhaut as the archetype of debris disks found elsewhere in our galaxy, because it has components similar to those we have in our own planetary system,” said András Gáspár, lead author of the study that details these new findings.
“By looking at the patterns in these rings, we can actually start to make a little sketch of what a planetary system ought to look like – If we could actually take a deep enough picture to see the suspected planets.”
Fomalhaut and its largest ring were previously a target of The Hubble Space Telescope, Herschel Space Observatory, and the Atacama Large Millimeter Array (ALMA). Though astronomers were able to achieve sharp images of the outer ring, none of the previous observations were able to capture the interior rings.
Another member on the research team, Schuyler Wolff, said, "Where Webb really excels is that we're able to physically resolve the thermal glow from dust in those inner regions. So you can see inner belts that we could never see before."
Astronomers are now combining the efforts of Hubble, ALMA, and Webb to learn more about the formation of 'debris disks' around a number of stars.
“With Hubble and ALMA, we were able to image a bunch of Kuiper Belt analogs, and we've learned loads about how outer disks form and evolve,” Wolff added.
“But we need Webb to allow us to image a dozen or so asteroid belts elsewhere. We can learn just as much about the inner warm regions of these disks as Hubble and ALMA taught us about the colder outer regions.”
Researchers used clues from our own solar system to infer the origin of the disks. The influence of planets like Jupiter and Neptune shape the asteroid belt and Kuiper Belt in within our on solar system, which lead researchers to believe there are some unseen planetary forces affecting the disks.
“The belts around Fomalhaut are kind of a mystery novel: Where are the planets?” said George Rieke, U.S. science lead for Webb's Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI) used to make these new findings.
“I think it's not a very big leap to say there's probably a really interesting planetary system around the star.”
Astronomers are hopeful that future examinations from Webb of additional systems will offer more insight into the origin of the rings of dust and debris, as well as the discovery of new planets.
“We definitely didn't expect the more complex structure with the second intermediate belt and then the broader asteroid belt,” Wolff added.
“That structure is very exciting because any time an astronomer sees a gap and rings in a disk, they say, ‘There could be an embedded planet shaping the rings!’”
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