New Mars Forums

Palomar

Member

From: USA

Registered: 2002-05-30

Posts: 9,734

Re: AU Microscopii

http://www.universetoday.com/am/publish … 82004]Here we go...

*Is a mere 33 light years away.  Youngest (and closest to us) known star possessing a dust disk containing what appears to be planets within it.    Report/study from University of Hawaii.

Only  33 l/y away!

Check out graph with comparison to orbit of Neptune.

--Cindy

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We all know [i]those[/i] Venusians: Doing their hair in shock waves, smoking electrical coronas, wearing Van Allen belts and resting their tiny elbows on a Geiger counter...

--John Sladek (The New Apocrypha)

EarthWolf

Member

From: Missouri, U.S.A.

Registered: 2004-07-20

Posts: 59

Re: AU Microscopii

Hello,

Interesting. So the only discernable clumps are are those found at the distances equal to Neptune and Pluto?

Cordially,

EarthWolf

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" Man will not always stay on the Earth. "

Konstantin Tsiolkovsky

Gennaro

Member

From: Eta Cassiopeiae (no, Sweden re

Registered: 2003-03-25

Posts: 591

Re: AU Microscopii

This is so cool!

More about AU Microscopii:

http://www.solstation.com/stars/au-mic3 … u-mic3.htm

Palomar

Member

From: USA

Registered: 2002-05-30

Posts: 9,734

Re: AU Microscopii

Hello,

Interesting. So the only discernable clumps are are those found at the distances equal to Neptune and Pluto?

Cordially,

EarthWolf

*Hi EarthWolf:

It seems so:

"The clumps in AU Mic's disk lie at separations of 25 to 40 Astronomical Units away from the central star (where one Astronomical Unit is the distance from the Earth to the Sun), or about 2 to 4 billion miles. In our own solar system, this corresponds to the regions where Neptune and Pluto reside."

-also of especial interest-

"AU Mic is a dim red star, with only half the mass and one-tenth the energy output as the Sun."

If the "clumps" do prove to be extrasolar planets...wow.  Life likely not there, but still -- close for other study.

--Cindy

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We all know [i]those[/i] Venusians: Doing their hair in shock waves, smoking electrical coronas, wearing Van Allen belts and resting their tiny elbows on a Geiger counter...

--John Sladek (The New Apocrypha)

Gennaro

Member

From: Eta Cassiopeiae (no, Sweden re

Registered: 2003-03-25

Posts: 591

Re: AU Microscopii

The clumps also move in a highly eccentric orbits, which is kind of significant.
Many extrasolar planets discovered have these wild eccentric orbits (that Plato wouldn't have approved of at all) and here we see them as created from the original proto-planetary disc.

Euler

Member

From: Corvallis, OR

Registered: 2003-02-06

Posts: 922

Re: AU Microscopii

Is a mere 33 light years away.  Youngest (and closest to us) known star possessing a dust disk containing what appears to be planets within it.

Did they just forget about Epsilon Eridani?  It has a dust disk with planets and is only 10.5 ly away.

So the only discernable clumps are are those found at the distances equal to Neptune and Pluto?

I think that this is more due to what we can detect than because the planets are all a long way away from the star.  The stars bright glare makes it difficult to see things that are close to it.

Gennaro

Member

From: Eta Cassiopeiae (no, Sweden re

Registered: 2003-03-25

Posts: 591

Re: AU Microscopii

Did they just forget about Epsilon Eridani?  It has a dust disk with planets and is only 10.5 ly away.

Epsilon Eridani is not quite as young, more like 500 million - 1 billion years old and hence later in its planetary system evolution.

~Eternal~

Member

Registered: 2003-09-25

Posts: 211

Re: AU Microscopii

Now where be my warp ship Mr. Soon   :bars3:

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The MiniTruth passed its first act #001, comname: PATRIOT ACT on  October 26, 2001.