debris disc – Astronomy Now

Webb finds more debris rings around Fomalhaut suggesting unseen planets

9 May 2023 Astronomy Now

Webb telescope discovers nested rings of debris around the hot young star Fomalhaut, an apparent indicator of unseen planets amid the chaos of their formation.

Huge debris ring holds clues to planet formation around young star

6 March 2018 Astronomy Now

The Hubble Space Telescope has spotted a vast 150-billion-mile-wide ring of debris around a young star that likely holds clues about how a variety of environmental factors affect planet formation.

Asteroid ripped apart to form star’s glowing ring system

11 November 2015 Astronomy Now

The remains of a fatal interaction between a dead star and its asteroid supper have been observed in detail for the first time. An international team of astronomers used the Very Large Telescope at ESO’s Paranal Observatory in Chile and other observatories to study the shattered remains of an asteroid around a stellar remnant — a white dwarf.

White dwarf “Death Star” seen destroying a planet

21 October 2015 Astronomy Now

The Death Star of the movie Star Wars may be fictional, but planetary destruction is real. Astronomers announced today that they have spotted a large, rocky object disintegrating in its death spiral around a distant white dwarf star. The discovery also confirms a long-standing theory behind the source of white dwarf “pollution” by metals.

Hubble sees pulverised planet in Beta Pictoris debris disc?

23 February 2015 Astronomy Now

Astronomers have used NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope to take the most detailed picture to date of a large, edge-on, gas-and-dust disc encircling the 20-million-year-old star Beta Pictoris, revealing what may be the pulverisation of a Mars-size body in a giant collision.