The Dust and Gas Around Beta Pictoris

Details The Dust and Gas Around Beta Pictoris The Dust and Gas Around Beta Pictoris

Jun 2007

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2007lyot.confe..33c&link_type=abstract

Proceedings of the conference In the Spirit of Bernard Lyot: The Direct Detection of Planets and Circumstellar Disks in the 21s

Physics

Scientific paper

We have obtained Spitzer IRS 5.5-35 micron spectroscopy of the debris disk around beta Pictoris. In addition to the 10 micron silicate emission feature originally observed from the ground, we also detect the crystalline silicate emission bands at 28 micron and 33.5 micron. This is the first time that the silicate bands at wavelengths longer than 10 micron have ever been seen in the beta Pictoris disk. The observed dust emission is well reproduced by a dust model consisting of fluffy cometary and crystalline olivine aggregates. We searched for line emission from molecular hydrogen and atomic S I, Fe II, and Si II gas but detected none. We place a 3 sigma upper limit of <17 Earth masses on the molecular hydrogen S(1) gas mass, assuming an excitation temperature of Tex = 100 K. This suggests that there is less gas in this system than is required to form the envelope of Jupiter. We hypothesize that the atomic Na I gas observed in Keplerian rotation around beta Pictoris may be produced by photon-stimulated desorption from circumstellar dust grains.

Affiliated with

Also associated with

No associations

Rating

The Dust and Gas Around Beta Pictoris does not yet have a rating. At this time, there are no reviews or comments for this scientific paper.

If you have personal experience with The Dust and Gas Around Beta Pictoris, we encourage you to share that experience with our LandOfFree.com community. Your opinion is very important and The Dust and Gas Around Beta Pictoris will most certainly appreciate the feedback.

Rate now

Comments { 0 }

Profile ID: LFWR-SCP-O-883614