In the early history of our solar system, scientists theorize that a Mars-sized object called Theia smashed into the infant Earth, vaporizing large amounts of rock and blasting it into space. Some of that material coalesced into the Moon, where NASA’s Artemis program is returning humans, preparing for Mars, and shaping the future of space exploration.
Astronomers have used NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope to examine a class of young systems that show signs of similar upheavals, providing clues to the amount of energy in their collisions. The results offer insights into the composition and evolution of these systems.
The team’s findings published Thursday in The Astrophysical Journal.
The environment surrounding a star changes as it ages, beginning with a juvenile, gas-rich protoplanetary disk where forming planets can live, before evolving to a gas-poor debris disk. During its mission lifetime, NASA’s retired Spitzer Space Telescope examined the debris disk stage and discovered a subclass termed debris disks. A team of astronomers led by Kate Su of the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colorado investigated these intriguing objects with Webb.
Despite their rarity, the team was able to compile a sample of 21 debris disks, including five from Spitzer’s archival data and 16 from Webb, with 12 newly observed disks and follow-up observations on four of Spitzer’s.
The team confirmed that debris disks share three properties: smaller dust grains than those in protoplanetary or classic debris disks, a high concentration of warm dust, and irregular brightness variations, all revealed by mid-infrared spectra from Webb and Spitzer.