NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has helped scientists understand where a planet, observed for years near the star Fomalhaut, disappeared. As it turned out, the bright spot, which was thought to be a celestial body, was actually a giant cloud of dust formed by the collision of two massive space rocks. This is reported by the Associated Press, writes UNN.
Details
The rarity of this discovery is striking, because according to calculations, similar collisions should occur in this area only once every 100,000 years.
Double catastrophe live
The study, published in the journal Science, describes a unique event: over the past 20 years, two powerful collisions of objects at least 60 kilometers wide have occurred in this area.
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These explosions created such dense curtains of debris that they masqueraded as planets until they dissipated over time. The debris formed from bodies the size of a large city, and their sudden appearance and disappearance forced astronomers to revise previous theories.
It is extremely unexpected that two unique massive collisions occurred in this area within 20 years
Why this is important for science
Fomalhaut is located only 25 light-years from Earth, which allows astronomers to study the processes of planetary system formation in real time. Studying such catastrophes helps to understand how our solar system once formed. Astrophysicists compare these images to baby photos of our planetary system, as collisions of large rocks are a fundamental stage in planet formation. Researchers are now planning to track the new dust cloud to record its complete disintegration in the coming years.
By observing this, scientists are recording these strong explosions in real time
– said study author Paul Kalas of the University of California, Berkeley.
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