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A nearby star is surrounded by an eerily thoroughgoing , " pancake - same " disk of cosmic junk that is unlike anything see before , newJames Webb Space Telescope(JWST ) images unwrap . The surprisingly quiet disk jot that no exoplanets have work around the star , name Vega , and researchers have no idea why .
The findings could upend our understanding of how alien worlds shape .
The superbright star Vega (hidden behind the black circle at the heart of this photo) is surrounded by a surprisingly smooth disk of dust and gas with no clear breaks that might indicate the presence of an exoplanet.
Vega is a blue - tinged star that ’s around twice as monumental asthe sunand situate around 25 unclouded - class from Earth . Due to its libertine spin , skinny law of proximity to Earth and the fact that its magnetized rod is betoken right at us , Vega come along very smart in the night sky : It is thefifth - brightest star visible from Earthto the raw eye . It is also part of the notable " Summer Triangle " of stars , whichappears at the first of summer in the Northern Hemisphere .
Besides being a prominent sight in the dark sky , Vega was depicted as the plate star of an advance foreign civilisation in the 1997 sci - fi film " Contact , " based on the 1985 Carl Sagan novel of the same name .
Over the past 20 years , astronomers have been studying a monumental , 100 billion - statute mile - wide ( 161 billion kilometers ) circumstellar disk of dust and gasolene surround Vega , similar to the protoplanetary disc that birthed the planet in thesolar systemaround 4.5 billion years ago , soon after the sun was born .
Researchers also peered at the disk with the Hubble Space Telescope. The resulting image, which shows Vega’s true blue tinge, has a lower resolution than the JWST images but confirms the uniformity of the star’s circumstellar disk.
Vega is around half a billion years old , which means it is plenty quondam enough to back up public of its own . However , late observations have hinted that there are no obtrusive cakehole in the disk , suggesting that noexoplanetshave make around the superbright star .
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In a new discipline , uploaded to the preprint serverarXivon Nov. 1 , investigator reverse to JWST ’s Mid - Infrared Instrument to peer at this disk . The lead pic put up the clearest - ever paradigm of Vega ’s dusty disk and show that it " front almost as still as a flannel cake , with no signs of planets , " the researchers wrote in astatement . ( The sketch has been accepted for future issue in The Astrophysical Journal . )
Similar JWST images of the nearby star Fomalhaut show a large dark break in its circumstellar disk, indicating that an exoplanet may have formed in this region.
" The Vega disc is smooth , laughably smooth , " work co - authorAndras Gáspár , an stargazer at the University of Arizona , say in the statement . " It ’s a mysterious organisation because it ’s unlike other circumstellar disks we ’ve looked at . "
The same researchers also took icon of Vega using theHubble Space Telescope . These photo show the same uniformity to the platter as the JWST persona but at a much lower resolving power . The findings were shared inanother paperuploaded to the preprint database arXiv.org on Nov. 1 , and have been accepted for publication in The Astrophysical Journal .
A obscure banding can be spotted around Vega in both image . However , this " gap , " which appear around 60 astronomical units ( twice the distance ofNeptunefrom the sun ) from the sensation , is the result of smaller dust atom being blown farther away from Vega by stellar radiation , and not because of an exoplanet .
The investigator compare the new JWST image to a similar picture the scope took of a circumstellar disk around an equally sized and likewise quondam lead , Fomalhaut . In theory , the two stars should see the same . However , Fomalhaut has a much larger and more distinct gap in its disk , which is a sign that one or more exoplanetsmay have exonerate the debris from this neighborhood of the system .
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The investigator can not explain why Vega can not spawn exoplanets and Fomalhaut seemingly can . " What ’s baffle is that the same physics is at workplace in both [ system ] , " discipline lead authorKate Su , an stargazer at the University of Arizona , said in the statement . " What ’s the difference of opinion ? Did the circumstellar environment , or the champion itself , create that difference ? "
The researcher also marvel whether more non - exoplanet - forming disks could be found around other similar star across the coltsfoot , which could have roast - on issue for predictions about how common exotic man could be .
" It ’s making us rethink the range and change among exoplanet systems , " Su say .
