The Spitzer Space Telescope has seen the eruption of vast quantities of dust surrounding a star called NGC 2547-ID8. Astronomers believe a collision of asteroids could have produced the alien dust cloud. This event may also herald the birth of a new world, researchers report.
The dust cloud was recorded by astronomers using the space telescope between August 2012 and January 2013. Ths is not the first time researchers have witnessed similar dust clouds around alien stars using Spitzer. This new finding, however, does mark the first time observations of a star have been made both before and after the creation of such a feature. The star lies 1,200 light years away from the Earth.
"We think two big asteroids crashed into each other, creating a huge cloud of grains the size of very fine sand, which are now smashing themselves into smithereens and slowly leaking away from the star," Huan Meng, a graduate student at the University of Arizona and lead author of a study announcing the discovery, said.
Rocky planets like Earth form when small particles of dust in these clouds begins to coalesce under the influence of gravity. Scientists believe this process takes around 100 million years for a planet te size of the Earth. This recent finding around NGC 2547-ID8 could provide astrophysicists with valuable data about how our own planet may have formed, 4.5 billion years ago.
Astronomers conducted a survey of the young star using infrared telescopes aboard Spitzer. For five months, observations had to be postponed, as Earth moved around its orbit to a point where the Sun made study of the star impossible. When observations resumed, astronomers were surprised to find the dust cloud was much denser than before.
"We are watching rocky planet formation happen right in front of us. This is a unique chance to study this process in near real-time," George Rieke of the University of Arizona, said.
The dust cloud surrounding NGC 2547-ID8 is elongated, and the amount of infrared light varies, depending on the orientation of the cloud with our home world. Study of these energy oscillations assisted astronomers in their investigation of the cloud.
Earlier observations of the 35-million-year-old star showed smaller variations in the density of dust, suggesting asteroid collisions may be underway. The Moon may have been created billins of years ago, when a rocky body as large as Mars collided with the early Earth.
Investigation of the dust cloud surrounding NGC 2547-ID8 was detailed in the journal Science.
