Astronomers have used the James Webb Space Telescope to observe the first asteroid belt seen outside our solar system, uncovering a few cosmic surprises along the way.
The space observatory focused on the hot dust that surrounds Foum Al Whale, a bright young star located 25 light-years from Earth.
The dusty disk around the “whale’s mouth” was first discovered in 1983 using NASA’s infrared astronomical satellite. But the researchers did not expect to see three interlocking rings of dust extending 14 billion miles (23 billion kilometers) from the star – or 150 times the distance from Earth to the sun.
James Webb’s new view revealed for the first time two inner belts of the young star, which had not been seen in previous images taken by the Hubble Space Telescope or other observatories.
The detailed image of the dust belts, taken in infrared light invisible to the human eye, showed that the structures are more complex than the main asteroid belt and the Kuiper belt in our solar system.
The main asteroid belt, located between Mars and Jupiter, is where remnants of our solar system’s formation orbit the sun. More icy remnants can be found in the Kuiper Belt at the edge of our solar system, a doughnut-shaped ring of small celestial bodies and dust beyond Neptune.
The scientists suggested that there were two deviating disks casting their shadows, and they were very close to each other during the previous observation, so the scientists missed their sighting. And with the passage of time, they have now separated and split into two shadows.
“We’ve never seen this before on a protoplanetary disk. It makes the system much more complex than we originally thought,” said Dr John Debbs, an astronomer at the Space Telescope Science Institute in the US, who is also the principal investigator of the study.
The simplest explanation is that the asymmetric disks are likely caused by the gravitational pull of two planets in slightly different orbital planes. Hubble brings together a comprehensive view of the structure of the system.
The scientists pointed out that the TW Hydrae system gave them the opportunity to see what our solar system looked like during its formative years.
The scientists said that the suspect planets are located in an area close to the distance between Jupiter and the sun, and the shadows complete a cycle around the star approximately every 15 years.
The scientists added that the outer disk also contains a strange space at twice Pluto’s average distance from the sun, which could be possible evidence for the existence of a third planet in the star system.
However, they added, it would be difficult to detect inner planets because their light would be lost in the star’s glow and the surrounding dust would dim the reflected light.
Rebecca Nealon, Associate Professor of Physics at the University of Warwick, explained: “The shifting shadows in TW Hydrae present a particular challenge for theorists. But our models were able to show that the most likely explanation is these two tilted discs casting moving shadows.TW Hydrae may be hiding two planets in asymmetric orbits, continuing the mystery of this planet-forming disk.
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