Note: this topic is from . Thanks BenLurkin.
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Posted on 05/07/2017 10:08:38 AM PDT by BenLurkin
[T]he team conducted a detailed analysis of the system that showed how it has an architecture remarkably similar to what astronomer believe the Solar System once looked like.
Led by Kate Su – an Associate Astronomer with the Steward Observatory at the University of Arizona – the team includes researchers and astronomers from the Department of Physics & Astronomy of Iowa State University, the Astrophysical Institute and University Observatory at the University of Jena (Germany), and NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory and Ames Research Center.
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[P]revious studies of Epsilon Eridani indicated that the system is surrounded by rings made up of materials that are basically leftovers from the process of planetary formation. Such rings consist of gas and dust, and are believed to contain many small rocky and icy bodies as well – like the Solar System’s own Kuiper Belt, which orbits our Sun beyond Neptune.
Careful measurements of the disk’s motion has also indicated that a planet with nearly the same mass as Jupiter circles the star at a distance comparable to Jupiter’s distance from the Sun. However, based on prior data obtained by the NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope, scientists were unable to determine the position of warm material within the disk – i.e. the dust and gas – which gave rise to two models.
In one, warm material is concentrated into two narrow rings of debris that orbit the star at distances corresponding respectively to the Main Asteroid Belt and Uranus in our Solar System. According to this model, the largest planet in the system would likely be associated with an adjacent debris belt. In the other, warm material is in a broad disk, is not concentrated into asteroid belt-like rings, and is not associated with any planets in the inner region.
(Excerpt) Read more at universetoday.com ...
The “Only” in the headline was meant as irony, because obviously it’s a nearly unimaginable distance away. That’s why your edit was out of place.
You think it meant to be ironic? Maybe. Though I kinda doubt it.
You may be right, you may not be. It doesn’t really matter, except that FR’s rules ask us not to alter the titles of articles. :-)
Note: this topic is from . Thanks BenLurkin.
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Send it for a flyby and back. I can wait.
Alpha Centauri is 4.3 LY away.
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