First asteroid belts discovered in Vega system

[struggle4progress]

Mark Hoffman
First Posted: Jan 09, 2013 05:34 PM EST

Signs of two large asteroid belts around Vega, which is the second brightest star in northern night skies, were reportedly found by astronomers employing the two infrared space telescopes Herschel from the European Space Agency, and Spitzer from NASA.

It would be just the second asteroid belt system identified outside of our own solar system, with the other located in the Fomalhaut system. Both stars appear to have inner, warm belts and outer, cool belts separated by a gap - a similar setup to the asteroid and Kuiper belts in our own solar system.

And since this kind of setup in our own solar system is only possible due to the smaller planets in the inner system, and the large planets between the inner and outer asteroid belts, it is quite likely that there are similar planetary systems around those two stars too - or are in the process of forming, since the stars are much younger than the sun.

"Our findings echo recent results showing multiple-planet systems are common beyond our sun," says Kate Su, an astronomer at the Steward Observatory at the University of Arizona ...

http://www.scienceworldreport.com/articles/4388/20130109/asteroid-belts-discovered-vega-system-points-exoplanets.htm

[DreamGypsy]

1. Cool. Interesting the Vega and Fomalhaut are so much younger...

than the sun...600 and 400 million years respectively.

And I didn't realize that any extra-solar-system asteroid belts had already been discovered, or how it is done:

To find the asteroid belts, the Herschel and Spitzer telescopes detected infrared light emitted by the warm and cold dust in separate bands. The dust is constantly formed by colliding chunks of rock in the belts, and fast comets crashing into it.

Both the inner and outer belts contain far more material than our own asteroid and Kuiper belts, which could be on one hand because the star systems are far younger than our own, and also since the system likely formed from an initially more massive cloud of gas and dust.

(NB: spell check wanted replace Kuiper with Kipper...had to smile at all those little swimmers so far away. Could that be how Doug Adams thought up "So long and thanks for all the fish.&quot

[longship]

2. "Build this machine!"

Direct from Vega:


Or, if you'd prefer, there's this Vega machine (but I wouldn't recommend going anywhere in it):

(1971 Chevy Vega: widely recognized as the worst automobile Detroit ever produced. It easily wins that award, unless you are a Ford Pinto fan.)