Hubble telescope spies 'peek-a-boo' exoplanets amid star's tilted dust rings

billslugg comments in post #3 are reflected in the article reporting too.

"After examining the problem using sophisticated models that varied the number and orientation of disks around TW Hydrae to try to reproduce Hubble's observations, the team determined that there are two misaligned disks present around the red dwarf both casting shadows on its outer disk. They attribute the fact that there are two warped disks to the presence of two planets "under construction" in the system with both exerting a gravitational pull on gas and dust around the young red dwarf. The proto-planets would have to have slightly different orbital planes to cause this double warping. The astronomers also have an idea of why one of the planets was playing peek-a-boo in the earlier 2017 observations, theorizing that the shadow it causes was merged with the previously discovered shadow. Moving at a slightly different speed, the second shadow eventually emerged allowing it to be sighted by Hubble in 2021."

This is a good interpretation of the observations; however, I remember well Fomalhaut with disc system and previous reports of a large exoplanet orbiting in the disc. More detailed studies did not confirm and some sites that reported the exoplanet have now removed the confirmation (e.g. exoplanet.eu).

James Webb Space Telescope snaps amazing photo of alien asteroid belt, https://forums.space.com/threads/ja...s-amazing-photo-of-alien-asteroid-belt.61317/

Some reports I read on TW Hydrae indicate nearly 16,000 earth masses in the disc.

Gas and Dust Shadows in the TW Hydrae Disk, https://arxiv.org/abs/2204.06691

My observation. I did not find the total disc mass reported in this paper (Gas and Dust...). MS BING search reports about TW Hya, "With a mass equivalent to 50 times that of Jupiter, the disc around TW Hydrae is several times more massive than the primordial disc that gave birth to our Solar System, offering the tantalising prospect of the star hosting a complex planetary system in the future. Artist's impression of the protoplanetary disc around TW Hydrae." My note. 50 Jupiter mass disc is close to 16,000 earth masses, 1.589100E+04 or 15891 earth masses.
 

Latest posts