Stock Photography of UX Tau A #20048


#20048 Stock Photography of UX Tau A by JVPD
Royalty-free NASA stock photo of the one-million-year-old star system called UX Tau A, located approximately 450 light-years away. Observations from NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope showed a gap in the dusty planet-forming disk swirling around the system’s central sun-like star.

Spitzer saw a gap in UX Tau A’s disk that extends from 0.2 to 56 astronomical units (an astronomical unit is the distance between the sun and Earth). The gap extends from the equivalent of Mercury to Pluto in our solar system, and is sandwiched between thick inner and outer disks on either side. Astronomers suspect that the gap was carved out by one or more forming planets.

Such dusty disks are where planets are thought to be born. Dust grains clump together like snowballs to form larger rocks, and then the bigger rocks collide to form the cores of planets. When rocks revolve around their central star, they act like cosmic vacuum cleaners, picking up all the gas and dust in their path and creating gaps.

Although gaps have been detected in disks swirling around young stars before, UX Tau A is special because the gap is sandwiched between two thick disks of dust. An inner thick dusty disk hugs the central star, then, moving outward, there is a gap, followed by another thick doughnut-shaped disk. Other systems with gaps contain very little to no dust near the central star. In other words, those gaps are more like big holes in the centers of disks.

Some scientists suspect that these holes could have been carved out by a process called photoevaporation. Photoevaporation occurs when radiation from the central star heats up the gas and dust around it to the point where it evaporates away. The fact that there is thick disk swirling extremely close to UX Tau A’s central star rules out the photoevaporation scenario. If photoevaporation from the star played a role, then large amounts of dust would not be floating so close to the star.

Photo Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech [0003-0712-1320-0560] by 0003

Similar Images:

#14676 Picture of Solar System With the Planets Labeled by JVPD
#14675 Picture of Labeled Planets of the Solar System by JVPD
#18755 Photo of Planets of Sedna, Earth, Quaoar, Pluto, Moon by JVPD
#14674 Picture of Planets of the Solar System by JVPD
#27003 Stock Photography of a Yellow Dwarf Planet, Hd 189733, Orbiting The Feiry Gas Giant Planet, Known As Hd 189733 B, In The Constellation Vulpecula by JVPD
#18764 Photo of a Solar System With Two Suns by JVPD
#1380 Photo of Rilles on the Surface of the Moon Rille Runs Through It by JVPD
#1335 Stock Photo of the Solar System Planets Against the Blackness of Space by JVPD
#27006 Stock Photography of The Spiral Galaxy M106 (ngc 4258) by JVPD
#1422 Stock Photo of the Planets of the Solar System With Craters of the Moon by JVPD
#1345 Photo of Spirals of the Milky Way Galaxy by JVPD
#1407 Photo of The Planet Earth Against the Black Background of Space by JVPD
#18759 Photo of a Red Ringed Planet Being Born Out of Dust by JVPD
#1329 Stock Photo of Planet Neptune by JVPD
#27004 Stock Photography of A Dark Cloud Resembling A Snake In Space by JVPD
More Astronomy Photos

Keywords

astronomy, nasa, outer space, space, star, star system, stars, ux tau a