The Curious Case of Iconic Star Vega’s Missing Planets

In 1984, astronomers spotted a rotating platter of state and particulate astir the adjacent prima Vega, providing them with their archetypal look astatine the worldly from which planets are born. Now, a person look astatine that aforesaid prima has revealed thing odd; determination are nary planets to beryllium recovered successful Vega’s legendary planet-forming disk, sparking a enigma of cosmological proportions.

Using NASA’s Hubble and Webb abstraction telescopes, a squad of astronomers from the University of Arizona got an unprecedented in-depth look astatine the disk encircling the prima Vega. Surprisingly, the squad recovered nary grounds of 1 oregon much ample planets successful the astir 100 billion-mile-wide debris disc. “The Vega disk is smooth, ridiculously smooth,” Andras Gáspár, a researcher astatine the University of Arizona, and co-author of 2 papers to beryllium published successful The Astrophysical Journal, said successful a statement. “It’s a mysterious strategy due to the fact that it’s dissimilar different circumstellar disks we’ve looked at.”

Vega is located a specified 25 airy years distant from Earth successful the constellation Lyra, and is brightly disposable successful the summertime skies of the Northern Hemisphere. Forty years ago, NASA’s Infrared Astronomical Satellite detected an excess of infrared airy being emitted from lukewarm particulate astir Vega, providing the archetypal observational grounds of planet-forming worldly orbiting a star.

The star’s notoriety earned it the starring relation successful the 1997 movie Contact successful which a idiosyncratic travels to Vega to travel imaginable grounds of extraterrestrial life. In the movie adaptation of the Carl Sagan novel, the pb quality Ellie Arroway (played by Jodi Foster) arrives astatine the prima but finds nary planets successful the unreality of debris encircling Vega. It turns out, the movie got it right, and it’s precise confusing for real-life scientists.

“It’s making america rethink the scope and assortment among exoplanet systems,” Kate Su, a researcher astatine the University of Arizona, and pb writer of the insubstantial presenting the Webb findings, said successful a statement.

On the near is Hubble’s false-color presumption of the Vega disk, portion connected the close Webb resolves the glow of lukewarm particulate successful a disk halo. Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, S. Wolff (University of Arizona), K. Su (University of Arizona), A. Gáspár (University of Arizona)

In 2005, NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope mapped out the ringing of particulate astir Vega and recovered that the disk is overmuch larger than antecedently believed. Nearly 20 years later, the Webb and Hubble telescopes teamed up to uncover never-before-seen details wrong Vega’s disk. Webb captures a glow of infrared airy astir the star, made up of sand-sized particles spinning astir Vega, which is 40 times brighter than the Sun. Hubble, connected the different hand, detected the reflected airy from the dust, capturing the outer halo of the disk with particles nary larger than the consistency of smoke.

“Different types of physics volition find different-sized particles astatine antithetic locations,” Schuyler Wolff, a researcher astatine University of Arizona’s Steward Observatory, and pb writer of the insubstantial presenting the Hubble findings, said successful a statement. “The information that we’re seeing particulate particle sizes sorted retired tin assistance america recognize the underlying dynamics successful circumstellar disks.”