Free Astronomy Magazine May-June 2018
20 MAY-JUNE 2018 SPACE CHRONICLES Huge system of dusty material enveloping HR 4796A discovered by NASA/ESA A stronomers have used NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope to uncover 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 discov- ered huge struc- ture around the system may have implications for what this yet-un- seen planetary system looks like around the 8-million-year-old star, which is in its formative years of planet construction. The debris field T his is a Hubble Space Tele- scope photo of a vast, complex dust structure, about 150 billion miles across, enveloping the young star HR 4796A. [NASA, ESA, and G. Schneider (Univer- sity of Arizona)]
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