Huge System of Dusty Material Enveloping the Young Star HR 4796A
This is a Hubble Space Telescope photo of a vast, complex dust structure, about 150 billion miles across, enveloping the young star HR 4796A. A bright, narrow inner ring of dust is already known to encircle the star and may have been corralled by the gravitational pull of an unseen giant planet. This newly discovered huge dust structure around the system may have implications for what this yet-unseen planetary system looks like around the 8-million-year-old star, which is in its formative years of planet construction. The debris field of very fine dust was likely created from collisions among developing infant planets near the star, evidenced by a bright ring of dusty debris seen 7 billion miles from the star. The pressure of starlight from the star, which is 23 times more luminous than the Sun, then expelled the dust far into space.
Credits
NASA, ESA, and G. Schneider (University of Arizona)| About The Object | |
|---|---|
| Object Name | HR 4796A |
| Object Description | Dusty disk surrounding young star HR 4796A |
| R.A. Position | 12:36:01.03 |
| Dec. Position | -39:52:10.23 |
| Constellation | Centaurus |
| Distance | 237 light-years |
| Dimensions | Image is about 23 arc seconds across (about 0.03 light-years) |
| About The Data | |
| Data Description | The HST observations include those from program (G. Schneider) |
| Instrument | STIS/CCD |
| Exposure Dates | January - July 2015 |
| About The Image | |
| Color Info | These images are a composite of separate exposures acquired by the STIS/CCD instrument on the Hubble Space Telescope. The color results from assigning the color blue to a monochromatic (grayscale) image. |
| Compass Image |  |
| About The Object | |
|---|---|
| Object Name | A name or catalog number that astronomers use to identify an astronomical object. |
| Object Description | The type of astronomical object. |
| R.A. Position | Right ascension – analogous to longitude – is one component of an object's position. |
| Dec. Position | Declination – analogous to latitude – is one component of an object's position. |
| Constellation | One of 88 recognized regions of the celestial sphere in which the object appears. |
| Distance | The physical distance from Earth to the astronomical object. Distances within our solar system are usually measured in Astronomical Units (AU). Distances between stars are usually measured in light-years. Interstellar distances can also be measured in parsecs. |
| Dimensions | The physical size of the object or the apparent angle it subtends on the sky. |
| About The Data | |
| Data Description |
|
| Instrument | The science instrument used to produce the data. |
| Exposure Dates | The date(s) that the telescope made its observations and the total exposure time. |
| Filters | The camera filters that were used in the science observations. |
| About The Image | |
| Image Credit | The primary individuals and institutions responsible for the content. |
| Publication Date | The date and time the release content became public. |
| Color Info | A brief description of the methods used to convert telescope data into the color image being presented. |
| Orientation | The rotation of the image on the sky with respect to the north pole of the celestial sphere. |
