Epsilon Eridani: A snapshot of our history

Posted Monday 17th November 2008 at 1:16 pm Comments(0)

From NASA Spitzer Project

NASA scientists have discovered that one of the closest solar systems to ours shows some very striking resemlblances to how are solar system looked when it was a lot younger.

The star at the center of the nearby system, called Epsilon Eridani, is a younger, slightly cooler and fainter version of the sun. Previously, astronomers had uncovered evidence for two possible planets in the system, and for a broad, outer ring of icy comets similar to our own Kuiper Belt.

The outer comet ring around Epsilon Eridani is denser than our comet ring, called the Kuiper belt, because the system is younger.

This new discovery should assist scientists and astronomers to model what our own solar system was like around the time life started taking hold on earth. Astronomers have discovered similar systems before but never one as close, only 10 light years away, to us.

“Because the system is so close to us, Spitzer can really pick out details in the dust, giving us a good look at the system’s architecture,”

said co-author Karl Stapelfeldt of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.

Asteroid belts are often the left overs from planet formation. The formed planet will then shepherd the nearby belt keeping it in its disk like orbit around its star. An asteroid belt is much easier to detect than an individual planet, but its existence allows astronomers to deduce what the size and composition of nearby planets. Asteroid belts are detected by using infra-red telescopes which can pick out the small releases of heat given off when dust and particles in the belt collides.