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Space Science

Hubble Captures a Protoplanetary Disk 105

Posted by CowboyNeal from the building-heavenly-bodies dept.
Astroturtle writes "The Hubble Space Telescope's new Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS) has captured a detailed image of spiral rings in a distant protoplanetary disk -- the pancake-shaped cloud of gas and dust around a young star in which planets are expected to condense. But contrary to earlier suggestions, the intricate structure of this particular disk is probably caused by a nearby companion star rather than by embedded planets starting to form."
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Hubble Captures a Protoplanetary Disk More

Hubble Captures a Protoplanetary Disk

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  • Makes one wonder (Score:5, Interesting)

    by zokum ( 650994 ) on Saturday April 05, 2003 @11:39AM (#5668701) Homepage
    Every time something like this is published, makes me wonder when we'll discover extra-terrestrial life. I honestly don't think it's a question of if, it's more about what, and whether they still are around. Seti@home might not be the solution, but as with all science, one has to start somewhere :-)

    • Re:Makes one wonder (Score:5, Interesting)

      by WegianWarrior ( 649800 ) on Saturday April 05, 2003 @11:50AM (#5668737) Journal

      It seems such a waste of space if we're alone... even more so if you're semi-religious as I am (I believe that science can explain most of the universe around us, but it was probaly the "great arcitect" that set it up to begin with). As we learn more about the universe and life, we may understand where and how to look for life out there.

      Life is one thing, intelligence is different. Before we all get worked up over SETI@home, why not take a look at STI@home [totl.net] - the search for terrestial intelligence?

      • Did anyone besides me see the story title and think: Wow, straight out of Ghostbusters!

        I think the best place to look for life "out there" is wherever there's dryers that eat socks, because that's a sure sign of intelligent life.

        I hold a similar semi-religious viewpoint, but sometimes my views are more along the lines of... God == Universe. Makes religious ideas different in interesting ways...

        • The proof, that there is intelligent life out there is....
          They DON'T come and visit us....
          What would THEY do with us anyway??

    • Re:Makes one wonder (Score:4, Funny)

      by digital bath ( 650895 ) on Saturday April 05, 2003 @11:52AM (#5668749) Homepage
      Hopefully. It would be a shame to have written all those sci-fi books and have them all turn out wrong...

    • Re:Makes one wonder (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Bicoid ( 631498 )
      Whether we'll find extraterrestrial life (self-replicating microenvironments that maintain homeostasis) is a given. Whether we'll recognize it as such is something completely different.

      And on the briht side, when we finally have the technology to get to this star system, the planets will already have coalesced and enough time will have passed for life to develop (possibly more than enough time if NASA keeps up their present track record).
    • In my opinion, I hope never (because I have a bet going with my roomate.) Here is the bet. cure for cancer first? or finding ET first? I run a United Devices client for cancer research, he runs SETI@HOME. And those who say I am biased...I've listened to ArtBell since 7th grade (in college now). -Grumpy Old Man

  • Original Image (Score:5, Interesting)

    by StingRayGun ( 611541 ) <ryanrray@gmaEULERil.com minus math_god> on Saturday April 05, 2003 @11:44AM (#5668713)
    It's nice to see the original image in this case. The color-enhanced added ones look pretty, and contribute to further exploration funding, but are often misleading.
  • I guess the war on Protoplanetary Disks is going well then.

  • Proprietary Discs? (Score:4, Funny)

    by yerricde ( 125198 ) on Saturday April 05, 2003 @11:48AM (#5668732) Homepage Journal

    After reading the headline, my first thought was of a copyright infringement sting operation. But then I realized it said "Protoplanetary" and not "Proprietary".

    • I suppose it's time to head down to the patent office and register "A method of condensing planets in a pancake-shaped cloud of gas and dust around a young star"

  • Jupiter and/or Saturn (Score:5, Interesting)

    by The Ape With No Name ( 213531 ) on Saturday April 05, 2003 @11:51AM (#5668746) Homepage
    Help me with my astronomy! Can we infer that the Gas giants might have helped form the inner planets if a companion mass like a star or large planet is necessary to do so? I don't know the accepted timeline/sequence of planetary formation in our system, but this kinda popped to mind.
    • I'm having a little trouble understanding your question, but I think what you're asking is "Would a massive companion body, be it a star or planet, aid in the formation of inner planets?" The answer to that is: kind of. They don't necessarily aid in the formation, but a large body would have the tendency to deflect smaller bodies, thus clearing the areas close to the star of debris. In our case this obviously helped with the formation of life. If the geometry or timeline changed a bit, however, it can b
    • Actually, you can infer that. (Although I don't see it coming from this bit of research.) Simulations indicate that having a Jupiter-ish planet in place helps the formation of the inner solar system along. But, of course, simulations are only so accurate.
  • Officials could not comment on the captured disk's plans, but did say that it had been taken to Guantanamo Bay for further questioning. Any large amount of dust must be checked out, especially with so much 'nuculer' activity in the region.
  • anyone have a mirror?
  • even Hubble, high in the sky, will be /. ed...

  • Spiral form (Score:2, Interesting)

    by MonkeyBoyo ( 630427 )
    the intricate structure of this particular disk is probably caused by a nearby companion star rather than by embedded planets starting to form.

    I thought that standard opinion on spiral forms (e.g. galaxies) was that they were created by interaction with massive companions.

    Who has ever proposed that internal bodies can cause a spiral form?

    • Re:Spiral form (Score:5, Informative)

      by Doctor Fishboy ( 120462 ) on Saturday April 05, 2003 @12:17PM (#5668829)
      I thought that standard opinion on spiral forms (e.g. galaxies) was that they were created by interaction with massive companions.

      Spirals in galaxies and these spirals in protoplanetary disks have different origins, and in the galactic spirals case, you don't need a binary companion to cause spiral structure.

      Who has ever proposed that internal bodies can cause a spiral form?

      OK, this is probably a gross simplification, so if there are any disk formation astronomers out there (you know who you are!), they'll give a much better description than this one!

      It partially depends on the viscosity of the material in the disk, and where most of the mass resides. If the mass of the disk is much smaller than the mass of the central star, the disk structure is dominated by the gravitational field of the central star and this tends to smooth out any spiral structure in the disk, and then you need a binary companion to stir up spiral modes in the disk.

      If the disk itself is massive enough, and the viscocity of the material is low enough, the disk's gravitational field can amplify up any spiral patterns that occasionally appear. So no, you don't need a binary compantion if the disk is massive enough. In this specific case, though, the disk mass is small, and so there's probably a binary companion acting as a swizzle stick.

      For galaxies, nearly all the mass resides in the disk of the galaxy and not in the centre (the mass of the black hole in the centre of the galaxy is tiny compared to the rest of the mass in our galaxy, and there's a honking huge halo of dark matter, I know, I know...) and so spiral modes tend to be self-reinforcing as they sweep around the galaxy.

      Blurgh, too early on Saturday morning...

      Dr Fish

      • If the disk itself is massive enough, and the viscocity of the material is low enough, the disk's gravitational field can amplify up any spiral patterns that occasionally appear.

        Do you have any references? I'm pretty sure I've read about simulations that show that spirals don't evolve from nothing. And simulations showing how interaction with other galaxies can cause spirals.

        If spirals can occur in a vacuume then why have the overwhelming number of galaxies which are elliptical not become spiral yet

        • Re:Spiral form (Score:3, Informative)

          by Doctor Fishboy ( 120462 )
          I think we may be both right, according to this reply on the Cornell ask an astronomer [cornell.edu] site, the 'self peturbation' theory can explain the fuzzier spiral arm galaxies, but not the larger grand design galaxies, which do need an external companion. It's not clear cut at all, though.

          As for your second question, it's to do with the way the stars orbit in a galaxy. If you could draw all the orbits of the stars in a spiral galaxy, you would see a badly stacked set of hula-hoops, - most orbits are nearly circula

  • CENSORED! (Score:5, Funny)

    by kinnell ( 607819 ) on Saturday April 05, 2003 @12:02PM (#5668779)
    The black areas are omitted because of poor data

    Yeah right! What they mean is that there was something phallic looking in the picture. Or maybe this is part of the movement to stop the publication of scientific findings which might be useful to terrorists. Either that, or they didn't want us to know about the alien civilisation they're waging a secret war against. Is nothing sacred?

    • I'm afraid the truth is actually much worse. The black void pictured is identical to the one previously encountered, as can plainly be seen here [trek47.com].

      It's the result of an 11,000 mile long space amoeba, which, if allowed to multiply, will threaten every living thing in this galaxy, starting with Spock [trek47.com].

      Don't say I didn't warn you. Details [starfleetlibrary.com] and more details [trek47.com].

  • embedded planets (Score:3, Funny)

    by AndroidCat ( 229562 ) on Saturday April 05, 2003 @12:03PM (#5668782) Homepage
    the intricate structure of this particular disk is probably caused by a nearby companion star rather than by embedded planets starting to form.

    If there were embedded planets there, they wouldn't be allowed to tell where they are, or face expulsion.

  • Nics pics. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Eevee ( 535658 ) on Saturday April 05, 2003 @12:10PM (#5668808)

    I wouldn't say spectacular, but the photos are impressive for the detail available. (I'm spoiled from all the color nebula shots.) The spiral formations are easily visible, even without the 'cheatsheet' image.

    Shame the images can't capture all the close-in dust. Considering that Pluto's only 40 a.u. out, having data from almost 100 a.u. around the star missing means a lot of the prime planetary formation area isn't available to examine.

  • OT gripe about idiotic web sites (Score:5, Interesting)

    by A nonymous Coward ( 7548 ) on Saturday April 05, 2003 @12:15PM (#5668823)
    In this particular case, as in many many others, they insist on having cookies or they serve up a finger waving page, naughty naughty me, instead of the desired page.

    What the heck is it with this infatuation with cookies? I have never been to Sky And Telescope before, there is nothing they need to remember about me, why do sites insist on even creating cookies before they are needed? Worset yet, why do they pretend they can't show any content without a cookie?

    I know cookies have their uses, I have written many websites where the cookie holds a key to db records, and I can even understand the rationale news sites using cookies for ad tracking, annoying as it is, but even news sites generally don't refuse to show the page in question just because a cookie couldn't be set.

    Yes, I will send a grip to the webmaster, but I also know it will be a waste of time.
    • When sending a grip to people, I find it most effective to use the Kung Fu grip! That usually gets their attention
    • "Why won't you accept our cookie? We're not doing anything with it that you have any reason to care about. There's no reason to use a browser that doesn't work with cookies. You're just being paranoid and weird." I happen to agree with you that cookies should not be required except when used for actual functionality (banking, shopping, email online). This is obviously not one of those cases. My only point is that _they_ don't see the problem with cookies in the first place because they don't think lik
  • It is all black. Suddenly, you sense you are sourrounded by a whirl. And, then in a moment you realize that the whirl is but part of a larger whirl. And, then in a moment you realize that that larger whirl is but part of a larger whirl. And, then in a moment you realize that that larger whirl is but part of a larger whirl. And, then in a moment you realize that that larger whirl is but part of a larger whirl. And, then in a moment you realize that that larger whirl is but part of a larger whirl. And, then i
  • HD 141569A is a very young type-A star 320 light-years away in Libra. Shining at 7th magnitude...
    Perhaps extra-terrestrials are already here and have infiltrated the space program. That quote certainly isn't in English.

    Nice eye candy though.

    • Re:It's all Greek... (Score:5, Informative)

      by CheshireCatCO ( 185193 ) on Saturday April 05, 2003 @12:32PM (#5668892) Homepage
      Translation:
      "The star is a young fairly massive and hot star 320 light-years away (I'll let you look that one up if you don't already know it :-) in the constellation Libra (which is largely irrelevent, really.). It's brightness seen from Earth (presumably) is about a factor of two fainter than the faintest star you can see on a clear, dark night.

      • Re:It's all Greek... (Score:5, Informative)

        by reverseengineer ( 580922 ) on Saturday April 05, 2003 @02:24PM (#5669304)
        Just adding to that excellent explanation, the arcane code HD 141569A merely gives the star's listing in the Henry Draper Catalogue, a gigantic star catalogue (over 250,000 entries) first compiled about a century ago. The spectral class A does denote that HD 141569A is a young, fairly massive, and hot star- its surface temperature should be between 7,500 - 10,000K, and it should be white to blue-white in color. Another example of an A type star would be Sirius.

        I also wanted to point out that the story submitter gets it a bit wrong- which is more the fault of the story, which fails to make this clear- HD 141569A is not in a binary system with a single companion star, it is in a three star system with two other stars. These other two stars, HD 141569B and HD 141569C, are in a binary relationship with each other, and together perturb the disk around HD 141569A, which is over 100 billion miles from the pair. This [arxiv.org] paper (.pdf file) from 1999 on the Arxiv gives more details on the star system and protoplanetary disk.
  • Site is slashdotted. Anyone got a copu

    Rus

  • Here's a non-cookie site (Score:4, Informative)

    by DrMorpheus ( 642706 ) on Saturday April 05, 2003 @12:50PM (#5668944) Homepage
    Go to the source if you want to view the pictures without Sky and Telescope's insistence on putting a cookie on you system.

    Here's the URL [hubblesite.org]

  • When will NASA put the new form of telescope that revolves around an axis up in orbit called an interferometer telescope? It's supposed to be a couple of hundred feet long and rotate with alot of mirrors acting as one large mirror. I think the name of the telescope was Large Array Interferometer Telescope. I read somewhere also that they were going to put one out near jupiter. Resolution would be revolutionary! Thanks for any info.

  • Those pictures [skyandtelescope.com] look more like Rorschach tests, or my neighbor the last time she took LSD.

  • Heh, go figure... someone that goes by the nick Astroturtle submits this...

    I have to wonder though, did he pick Astroturtle because it seems like light is pretty fsking slow when it travels across interstellar distances? ;)

    Or maybe he just likes turtles?

    I got it... maybe when he was a kid he attached small turtles to model rockets and sent them off into the wild blue yonder... thus... ASTROTURTLE!

    OK, a little more OT...

    These pics are neat and I'm sure astronomers are all happy with them, but

    • It is a reference to Terry Pratchett's Discworld, which rests on the backs of four elephants who stand on the back of A'Tuin, the Great Turtle.
  • I guess that's not all that far on a galactic scale; still I'm extremely impressed that we can get images of what seems to be solar-system scale (actually the width was several hundred astronomical units across, so a few times bigger than our solar system - but it's a bright star too). High resolution imagery like that with just Hubble makes things like the proposed Kepler planet-finder telescope actually seem feasible to directly view planets around distant stars. We'll be entering a new age soon, where we
  • Does anyone else think the picture of the protoplanetary disk just looks like someone shining a flashlight on a piece of shit? Okay.
  • Anybody else notice that the publication date on this thing is April 1st? I was pretty sure that the Hubble Space telescope didn't have that kind of resolving power. Otherwise, I believe it could detect planets directly!
  • And I thought this 120G would last me a while.
  • I know the planet in the picture isnt far enough away in this case, but it would be great if hubble showed us a picture of a proto-planet/star/galaxy a few million light years away, why by now, has become an earth like planet, with an advanced civilisation that has discovered FTL travel, who are now on their merry way to earth to say hi! (Or less great - with big guns aimed in our direction).
  • 1.. Date of article = 1 April 2.. 141569 is pretty close to the digits of pi, pi = 3.14159265359 Might be coincidene...... :)

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