Star Ends Infancy Abruptly

Blob · #1 (**permalink**) 24-October-2006, 09:51 PM

Quote:

Zooming in on a nearby young star called HD 141569A, astronomers from the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan and the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy used the Subaru telescope on Mauna Kea, Hawai'i, to discover a hole in a disk of gas and dust encircling the star. The existence of this large gap, which is about the size of the orbit of Saturn, supports the theory that this young star ended its infancy abruptly, by ionising and pushing away the gas in the disk from which it was born.

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HD 141569A, lies 320 light-years away in the constellation Libra and appears to be a member of a triple-star system.

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Peter Wilson · #2 (**permalink**) 27-October-2006, 09:58 PM

At some point during a star's formation, thermonuclear ignition takes place and everything changes.

Is this "hole" the result of such an event? Was this star literally "born yesterday"?

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