A Lightweight Disk Around a Lightweight Star May Harbor Earth-like Planet (Forwarded)
- From: Andrew Yee <ayee@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Tue, 12 Feb 2008 18:42:17 -0500
National Astronomical Observatory of Japan
Tokyo, Japan
February 8, 2008
A Lightweight Disk Around a Lightweight Star May Harbor Earth-like Planet
A team of Japanese astronomers resolved a circumstellar disk around the
young lightweight star FN Tau. The diminutive star is located in a
star-forming region toward the Constellation Taurus at a distance 460 light
years from Earth. This research group (Note 1) used the Coronagraphic Imager
with Adaptive Optics (CIAO) at the Subaru Telescope to directly image FN Tau
and the lightweight disk of planet-forming material surrounding it (Figure
1). This star is merely 100 thousand years old and weighs only one tenth of
the Sun.
For background, a circumstellar disk is a mixture of gas and dust around a
young newly formed star. The disk accompanies almost most, if not all,
sun-like star formation processes, and planets commonly form in this disk.
The disk can also be referred to as a protoplanetary disk (referred to
simply as a "disk" in the following text) because the solid particles inside
the disk collide and stick together and grow into planetesimals, which then
crash into each other eventually accumulating enough mass to be stabilized
as planets. In response to this scenario, the study of youthful stars and
their surrounding structures provide details into the formation of planetary
systems, and the search for planets outside our solar system motivates much
of modern astronomy. Although hundreds have been found through indirect
methods, being the first to directly image an extrasolar planet is one of
the primary goals of Subaru. The findings at FN Tau show that Subaru is on
the right path toward planet discovery.
Observation of protoplanetary disks is not simple because they are small and
fainter than their central stars. To date, there are only a few examples
that were resolved to show the structures of disks, and only two of them are
for Sun-like single stars. Thus far, the Subaru Telescope has pointed toward
more massive disks around stars heavier than the Sun (Note 2). The FN Tau
researchers pointed the telescope toward this least massive star trying to
detect lightweight disks. The previous record of the direct imaging of
lowest mass disks was around star TW Hya, which is seven times heavier than
the FN Tau disk. The small size in this study is a big jump in knowledge
about planet formation around lowest mass stars.
The FN Tau study found a thick, compact, and roughly circular protoplanetary
disk, meaning astronomers were observing it nearly face-on. Its radius is
260 times the Earth-Sun distance, similar to other disks observed
previously. The disk is rather featureless, and does not have any anomalies
or asymmetries, such as rings, spirals, or arms. The mass of the disk was
estimated to be 6% of the central FN Tau star, and by far the least massive
one directly detected. In result, the current finding is the combination of
the most lightweight protoplanetary disk around the least massive star. An
artistic rendering of the FN Tau system is shown in Figure 2.
One of the questions to come out during the study was what kind of planets
can be formed from the disk around FN Tau? To date, astronomers worldwide
have found 270 extrasolar planets using the indirect detection method, and
all are primarily Jupiter-like giant planets; the least massive exoplanet is
still 5 times heavier than Earth. Because it surrounds a smaller star, the
disk about FN Tau was believed to more likely contain Earth-like planets.
The best-fit model used during this study shows that the lightweight disk
around FN Tau could only produce Earth-like planets. The planetary system
formation theory also predicted that the disk is able to form planets
lighter than the Earth within 30 AU, the distance where we find planets in
our Solar System (Note 3). The lack of heavier objects, such as a
Jupiter-size planet, in the FN Tau disk system is consistent with the
astronomers' theoretical expectation.
For the future, the newly commissioned instrument HiCIAO at Subaru will
boost the approach of this team (see December 26, 2007 News Release). The
high dynamic range instrument also will have powerful reinforcement with
Subaru's new generation AO system with 188 elements and laser guide star
(see November 20, 2006 News Release). The astronomers are hoping to resolve
the detailed structure of disks and analyze the size and composition of the
dust within. The team will narrow their targets before observations start at
ALMA (Atacama Large Millimeter Array) or the next generation large
telescopes.
This discovery is reported in the Astrophysical Journal Letters in its
January 20, 2008 issue, Volume 673, page L67.
NOTES
Note 1: Team members are in the Graduate University of the Advanced Studies
(SOKENDAI), National Astronomical Observatory, ISAS/JAXA, Nagoya University,
Kobe University, and Ibaraki University. This research is supported by
Grants-In-Aid for Scientific Research on Priority Areas, "Development of
Extra-Solar Planetary Science", from the Ministry of Education, Culture,
Sports, Science and Technology (16077101, 16077204), and by JSPS (16340061).
Note 2: More massive protostellar disks show more diverse structures, as
revealed by CIAO/Subaru, such as the spiral structure or a pair of arches.
Spiral pattern in the protostellar disk
http://www.subarutelescope.org/Pressrelease/2004/04/18/index.html
Pair of arches
http://www.subarutelescope.org/Pressrelease/2006/06/27/index.html
Note 3: Astronomical unit (= 1 AU) is the mean distance between the Sun and
the Earth, 150 million kilometers, or approximately 95 million miles.
Note 4: About CIAO at Subaru Telescope
http://www.subarutelescope.org/Introduction/instrument/CIAO.html
About AO (its first generation version -- 36 elements -- at Subaru
Telescope)
http://www.subarutelescope.org/Introduction/instrument/AO.html
IMAGE CAPTIONS:
[Figure1:
http://subarutelescope.org/Pressrelease/2008/02/08/fig01.jpg (176KB)]
FN Tau captured by CIAO instrument mounted on Subaru Telescope. This
infrared image taken at 1.6 micron shows an almost face-on circular disk
structure. The light from the central star FN Tau itself is blocked by the
coronagraph mask. Somewhat symmetrical darker areas are the blocking by the
secondary mirror support.
[Figure 2:
http://subarutelescope.org/Pressrelease/2008/02/08/fig02.jpg (90KB)]
Illustration of the protoplanetary disk around FN Tau. Because central star
has only one tenth of the mass of the Sun, its gravity is small and the disk
becomes thicker with increasing distance from the central star. Resultantly,
the scattering of light from the star is more efficient than that by a flat
disk and the disk appears brighter than expected.
.
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