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...the debris disk around a star known as HD 15115 has a needle-like shape... Researchers are studying whether the gravity of a star known as HIP 12545, located about 10 light years from HD 15115, is the reason for the needle formation which appears blue when viewed in optical light with Hubble and near-infrared light with Keck... debris disks such as the one around HD 15115 are believed to be made up of the remnants of planet production. They are also similar to the Kuiper Belt, the region of our solar system extending from and beyond the orbit of Neptune...

Impactor ejects mighty water mass By Jonathan Amos BBC News science reporter, in Leicester Comets hold materials unchanged since the Solar System's formation The Nasa projectile that slammed into Comet Tempel 1 last year kicked out at least 250,000 tonnes of water. The figure comes from UK/US scientists on the Swift telescope, one of many observatories called on to study the US space agency's Deep Impact event. Swift's X-ray data shows more water was released and over a longer time scale than had previously been thought. Researchers hope the new information will help them understand better the nature and construction...

IRC+10216, also known as CW Leonis, was once a well-behaved main-sequence star as our own Sun is now... When astronomers turned the satellite toward IRC+10216 they discovered a substantial cloud of water vapor about 100 AU across. ("AU" --short for Astronomical Unit-- is a unit of length used by astronomers. One AU equals the mean distance between Earth and the Sun.) "There must be about four Earth-masses of frozen water around IRC+10216 to produce the vapor cloud we see," says Melnick. The water vapor probably does not come from the vaporization of oceans on an Earth-like planet, because there wouldn't...

Scientists have speculated that what appeared to be a warp in the main disk of dust was in fact a second disk. Confirmation of its existence has sparked new speculation that there is at least one gas giant in the stellar system. To see the second ring of dust, astronomers had to block the direct light from Beta Pictoris using the (currently offline) Advanced Camera’s coronagraph. The secondary disk, which is inclined at about four degrees from the main disk, is visible as far as 24bn miles from the star, despite being much fainter than the main dust belt. The...