In the 1997 movie “Contact,” adapted from Carl Sagan’s 1985 novel, the lead character scientist Ellie Arroway (played by actor Jodi Foster) takes a space-alien-built wormhole ride to the star Vega.
A team of astronomers at the University of Arizona, Tucson used NASA’s Hubble and James Webb space telescopes for an unprecedented in-depth look at the nearly 100-billion-mile-diameter debris disk encircling Vega.
“Between the Hubble and Webb telescopes, you get this very clear view of Vega.
“The Vega disk is smooth, ridiculously smooth.”
“The Hubble and Webb observations together provide so much more detail that they are telling us something completely new about the Vega system that nobody knew before,” said Rieke.
In the 1997 film “Contact,” which was based on Carl Sagan’s 1985 book, Jodi Foster’s character, scientist Ellie Arroway, travels to the star Vega via a wormhole constructed by space aliens. There are no visible planets when she emerges, but the star is surrounded by a snowstorm of debris.
The filmmakers appear to have done it correctly.
Using NASA’s Hubble and James Webb space telescopes, a group of astronomers from the University of Arizona, Tucson, conducted an unprecedentedly detailed examination of the debris disk surrounding Vega, which is approximately 100 billion miles in diameter.
“This very clear view of Vega is obtained between the Webb and Hubble telescopes. A member of the research team, Andras Gáspár of the University of Arizona, described the system as “mysterious because it’s different from other circumstellar disks we’ve looked at.”. “The Vega disk has an absurdly smooth surface. “..”.
The research team’s biggest surprise is that there isn’t any clear proof that one or more massive planets are navigating the face-on disk like snow tractors. Lead author of the paper presenting the Webb findings, Kate Su of the University of Arizona, stated, “It’s making us rethink the range and variety among exoplanet systems.”.
The sizzling blue-white star, 40 times brighter than our sun, is surrounded by a disk of sand-sized particles that give off an infrared glow, which Webb observes. This disk’s outer halo, which is made up of particles no larger than smoke and reflecting starlight, is captured by Hubble.
Because the pressure of starlight drives out smaller grains more quickly than larger grains, the dust distribution in the Vega debris disk is layered. “Different types of physics will locate different-sized particles at different locations,” stated Schuyler Wolff, the lead author of the paper that presented the Hubble findings and a member of the University of Arizona team. The underlying dynamics in circumstellar disks can be better understood thanks to the dust particle sizes that are being sorted out. “..”.
Although there is a small gap in the Vega disk, about 60 astronomical units (AU) from the star (twice as far away as Neptune is from the sun), the disk is otherwise extremely smooth all the way in until it is obscured by the star’s glare. The researchers claim that this demonstrates that there are no planets with masses at least as great as Neptune that orbit in vast circles like those found in our solar system.
We’re witnessing firsthand the diversity of circumstellar disks and their relationship to the planetary systems beneath them. Su continued, “Even though we can’t see what might be hidden planets, we’re learning a lot about the planetary systems.”. “I believe these new observations of Vega will help constrain models of planet formation, but there are still many unanswered questions in the planet-formation process. “.
Disk variety.
The flattened remnant of the cloud from which newly forming stars are formed is a disk of gas and dust from which they accrete material. Around a large number of newly forming stars, Hubble discovered disks in the mid-1990s. Planet formation, migration, and occasionally destruction are probably occurring on the disks.
The dusty disks of fully developed stars, such as Vega, are enhanced by debris from evaporating comets and continuous “bumper car” collisions between orbiting asteroids. These primordial bodies are capable of surviving up to Vega’s current age of 450 million years (our sun is about ten times older than Vega).
Minor bodies in our solar system also contribute to the replenishment of dust (represented by the Zodiacal light) by ejecting dust at a rate of roughly 10 tons per second. Planets push this dust around. This offers a method for finding planets orbiting other stars by observing their effects on the dust rather than by actually seeing them.
“Vega is still unique,” Wolff stated. The Vega system’s structure differs significantly from that of our own solar system, where massive planets like Jupiter and Saturn prevent the dust from spreading as it does in Vega. “,”.
Fomalhaut, a nearby star, is comparable to Vega in terms of distance, age, and temperature. However, the circumstellar architecture of Vega and Fomalhaut differs significantly. There are three nested debris belts in Fomalhaut.
Although no planets have been positively identified as of yet, they are proposed as shepherding bodies that gravitationally constrict the dust into rings around Fomalhaut. Team member George Rieke of the University of Arizona asked, “Given the physical similarity between the stars of Vega and Fomalhaut, why does Fomalhaut seem to have been able to form planets and Vega didn’t?”.
“What’s puzzling is that the same physics is at work in both,” Wolff continued. “What’s the difference? Did the star itself, or the circumstellar environment, create that difference?”.
The first indication of potential planetary construction yards.
One of the brightest stars in the northern sky, Vega is found in the summer constellation Lyra. The first evidence of material orbiting a star—likely the material needed to create planets—as possible habitats for life is what made Vega legendary.
Immanuel Kant made this initial hypothesis in 1775. However, more than 200 years passed before the first observational data was gathered in 1984. NASA’s Infrared Astronomy Satellite (IRAS) detected a perplexing excess of infrared light from warm dust. It was understood to be a dust shell or disk that extended twice as far from the star as Pluto’s orbital radius.
A dust ring surrounding Vega was charted in 2005 by NASA’s infrared Spitzer Space Telescope. Submillimeter telescopes, such as Caltech’s Submillimeter Observatory on Mauna Kea, Hawaii, the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) in Chile, and the European Space Agency’s (ESA) Herschel Space Telescope, were used to confirm this further, but none of them were able to see much detail.
“The combined Hubble and Webb observations give us so much more information that they are revealing something entirely new about the Vega system that no one previously knew,” Rieke stated.
