A dust ring around Epsilon Eridani: analogue to the young Solar System

Details A dust ring around Epsilon Eridani: analogue to the young Solar System A dust ring around Epsilon Eridani: analogue to the young Solar System

1998-08-20

arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/9808224v1

Astronomy and Astrophysics

Astrophysics

13 pages including 2 figures

Scientific paper

10.1086/311652

Dust emission around the nearby star epsilon Eridani has been imaged using a new submillimetre camera (SCUBA at the JCMT). At 850 microns wavelength a ring of dust is seen, peaking at 60 AU from the star and with much lower emission inside 30 AU. The mass of the ring is at least 0.01 Earth masses in dust, while an upper limit of 0.4 Earth masses in molecular gas is imposed by CO observations. The total mass is comparable to the estimated amount of material, 0.04-0.3 Earth masses, in comets orbiting the Solar System. The most probable origin of the the ring structure is that it is a young analogue to the Kuiper Belt in our Solar System, and that the central region has been partially cleared by the formation of grains into planetesimals. Dust clearing around epsilon Eri is seen within the radius of Neptune's orbit, and the peak emission at 35-75 AU lies within the estimated Kuiper Belt zone of 30-100 AU radius. epsilon Eri is a main-sequence star of type K2V (0.8 Solar masses) with an estimated age of 0.5-1.0 Gyr, so this interpretation is consistent with the early history of the Solar System where heavy bombardment occurred up to approximately 0.6 Gyr. An unexpected discovery is substructure within the ring, and these asymmetries could be due to perturbations by planets.

Affiliated with

Also associated with

No associations

Rating

A dust ring around Epsilon Eridani: analogue to the young Solar System 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 A dust ring around Epsilon Eridani: analogue to the young Solar System, we encourage you to share that experience with our LandOfFree.com community. Your opinion is very important and A dust ring around Epsilon Eridani: analogue to the young Solar System will most certainly appreciate the feedback.

Rate now

Comments { 0 }

Profile ID: LFWR-SCP-O-21170