In a news story today at the University of London, using the ALMA Observatory in Chile, researchers from the Instituto de Astrofísica
de Andalucía (CSIC) and Queen Mary University of London (QMUL) have detected dust around Proxima Centauri.
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Originally Posted by University of London
The new observations reveal the glow coming from cold dust in a region between one to four times as far from Proxima Centauri as the Earth is from the Sun.
The data also hint at the presence of an even cooler outer dust belt. These structures are similar to the much larger belts in the Solar System and are also expected to be made from particles of rock and ice that failed to form planets.
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Originally Posted by University of London
Co-author of the study Guillem-Anglada-Escudé, from QMUL, said: “The cold dust detected by ALMA is really important because it shows the new level of detail that we can reach in understanding planetary systems when focusing on these very nearby stars with new generation observatories.
“These observations show that Proxima Centauri seems to hold a rich planetary system with an interesting dynamical history rather than just Proxima b, which we discovered last year.”
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Originally Posted by University of London
Dust belts are the remains of material that did not form into larger bodies such as planets. The particles of rock and ice in these belts vary in size from the tiniest dust grain, smaller than a millimetre across, up to asteroid-like bodies many kilometres in diameter.
Dust appears to lie in a belt located at a few hundred million kilometres from Proxima Centauri and has a total mass of about one hundredth of the Earth’s mass. This belt is estimated to have a temperature of about –230 degrees Celsius, as cold as that of the Kuiper Belt in the outer Solar System.
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Originally Posted by University of London
Lead author of the study Guillem Anglada, from (CSIC), Granada, Spain, explains the implications of the discovery: “This result suggests that Proxima Centauri may have a multiple planet system with a rich history of interactions that resulted in the formation of a dust belt. Further study may also provide information that might point to the locations of as yet unidentified additional planets.”
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Story here :-
http://www.qmul.ac.uk/media/news/items/se/200669.html
Paper entitled "
ALMA DISCOVERY OF DUST BELTS AROUND PROXIMA CENTAURI" by Anglada et. al. here :-
https://www.eso.org/public/archives/...5/eso1735a.pdf
