Study: Stars Form From Debris Disks

U.S. astronomers say the Hubble Space Telescope has confirmed what has been long predicted: planets form from debris disks around stars.

More than 200 years ago, philosopher Emmanuel Kant first proposed that planets are born from disks of dust and gas that swirl around their home stars. Although more than 200 extrasolar planets and many debris disks around young stars have since been seen, astronomers hadn’t observed a planet and a debris disk around the same star.

Now, data from the Hubble Space Telescope have confirmed that prediction.

The Hubble observations by an international team of astronomers led by G. Fritz Benedict and Barbara McArthur of the University of Texas show for the first time that a planet is aligned with its star’s circumstellar disk of dust and gas.

The planet, detected in 2000, orbits the nearby star Epsilon Eridani, located 10.5 light-years from Earth in the constellation Eridanus. The planet’s orbit is inclined 30 degrees to Earth, the same angle at which the star’s disk is tilted.

The research will appear in the November issue of the Astronomical Journal.