These images reveal five planetary debris disks uncovered in images around young stars that astronomers retrieved from the Barbara A. Mikulski Archive for Space Telescopes (MAST). Hubble's Near Infrared Camera and Multi-Object Spectrometer observed the disks in near-infrared light between 1999 and 2007. Astronomers used a coronagraph to block out the bright light from each star so they could analyze the faint, reflected light off dust particles in the disks. Recently applied new image processing techniques allowed astronomers to subtract excess starlight that escaped beyond the coronagraph to clearly reveal the debris disks. The disks around HD 30447, HD 35841, and HD 141943 appear edge-on; the other two appear inclined. The Sun-like star HD 141943 is about the same age as our Sun when terrestrial planets like Earth were forming from material in its debris disk.
Credits
NASA, ESA, and Z. Levay (STScI)| About The Object | |
|---|---|
| Object Name | HD 141943, HD 191089, HD 202917, HD 30447, HD 35841 |
| Object Description | Circumstellar Disks |
| About The Data | |
| Data Description | The NICMOS data for these images are from the HST proposals: Object Name: HD 141943 R.A.: 15h 53m 27s.30 Dec.: -42° 16' 0".72 Proposals: (PI: D. Hines, STScI) and (PI: S. Metchev, Stonybrook U.) Filters: F110W and F160W Exposure Date: 2006, 2007 Object Name: HD 191089 R.A.: 20h 9m 5s.21 Dec.: -26° 13' 26".53 Proposals: (PI: D. Hines, STScI) and (PI: S. Metchev, Stonybrook U.) Filter: F110W Exposure Date: 2007 Object Name: HD 202917 R.A.: 21h 20m 49s.93 Dec.: -53° 2' 2".29 Proposals: (PI: D. Hines, STScI), (PI: S. Metchev, Stonybrook U.), and (PI: E. Becklin, UCLA ) Filters: F110W and F160W Exposure Date: 1999, 2007 Object Name: HD 30447 R.A.: 4h 46m 49s.53 Dec.: -26° 18' 8".84 Proposal: (PI: G. Schneider, U. of Arizona) Filter: F110W Exposure Date: 2005 Object Name: HD 35841 R.A.: 5h 26m 36s.59 Dec.: -22° 29' 23".72 Proposal: (PI: G. Schneider, U. of Arizona) Filter: F110W Exposure Date: 2005 |
| Instrument | HST>NICMOS |
| Filters | F110W and F160W |
| About The 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. |
