The two images at top reveal debris disks around young stars uncovered in archival images taken by NASA's Hubble Space Telescope. Hubble's Near Infrared Camera and Multi-Object Spectrometer observed the disks in near-infrared light in 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. The illustration beneath each image depicts the orientation of the debris disks. Astronomers retrieved these images from the Barbara A. Mikulski Archive for Space Telescopes (MAST) and used more powerful image analysis techniques to search for planetary systems.
Credits
Image: NASA, ESA, and R. Soummer and A. Feild (STScI);Science: NASA, ESA, R. Soummer (STScI), and M. Perrin (STScI), L. Pueyo (STScI/Johns Hopkins University), C. Chen and D. Golimowski (STScI), J.B. Hagan (STScI/Purdue University), T. Mittal (University of California, Berkeley/Johns Hopkins University), E . Choquet, M. Moerchen, and M. N'Diaye (STScI), A. Rajan (Arizona State University), S. Wolff (STScI/Purdue University), J. Debes and D. Hines (STScI), and G. Schneider (Steward Observatory/University of Arizona)
| About The Object | |
|---|---|
| Object Name | HD 141943, HD 191089 |
| Object Description | Circumstellar Disks |
| About The Data | |
| Data Description | The NICMOS data for these images are from the following HST proposals: (PI: D. Hines, STScI) and (PI: S. Metchev, Stonybrook U.) HD 141943 (left) R.A.: 15h 53m 27s.30 Dec.: -42° 16' 0".72 Filters: F110W and F160W Exposure Date: 2006, 2007 HD 191089 (right) R.A.: 20h 9m 5s.21 Dec.: -26° 13' 26".53 Filter: F110W Exposure Date: 2007 |
| Instrument | HST>NICMOS |
| Exposure Dates | 2006, 2007 |
| Filters | HD 141943 (left): F110W and F160W HD 191089 (right): F110W |
| 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. |
