When astronomers study protoplanetary disks of gas and dust that surround young stars, they sometimes spot a dark gap like the Cassini division in Saturn's rings. It has been suggested that any gap must be caused by an unseen planet that formed in the disk and carved out material from its surroundings. However, new research shows that a gap could be a sort of cosmic illusion and not the sign of a hidden planet after all.
"If we don't see light scattered from the disk, it doesn't necessarily mean that nothing is there," says lead author Til Birnstiel (Max Planck Institute for Astronomy), who conducted the research while at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA).
The researchers studied disks that shine in visible or near-infrared wavelengths due to scattered, or reflected, light. (In contrast, radio or millimeter telescopes pick up emission directly from the disk itself.)
Scattered light comes from starlight that bounces off tiny particles about the size of cigarette smoke. Those particles initially suffuse the protoplanetary disk, but undergo changes over time.
Comparative Habitability of Transiting Exoplanets
Authors:
Barnes et al
Abstract:
Exoplanet habitability is traditionally assessed by comparing a planet's semi-major axis to the location of its host star's "habitable zone," the shell around a star for which Earth-like planets can possess liquid surface water. The Kepler space telescope has discovered numerous planet candidates near the habitable zone, and many more are expected from missions such as K2, TESS and PLATO. These candidates often require significant follow-up observations for validation, so prioritizing planets for habitability from transit data has become an important aspect of the search for life in the universe. We propose a method to compare transiting planets for their potential to support life based on transit data, stellar properties and previously reported limits on planetary emitted flux. For a planet in radiative equilibrium, the emitted flux increases with eccentricity, but decreases with albedo. As these parameters are often unconstrained, there is an "eccentricity-albedo degeneracy" for the habitability of transiting exoplanets. Our method mitigates this degeneracy, includes a penalty for large-radius planets, uses terrestrial mass-radius relationships, and, when available, constraints on eccentricity to compute a number we call the "habitability index for transiting exoplanets" that represents the relative probability that an exoplanet could support liquid surface water. We calculate it for Kepler Objects of Interest and find that planets that receive between 60-90% of the Earth's incident radiation, assuming circular orbits, are most likely to be habitable. Finally, we make predictions for the upcoming TESS and JWST missions.
New limit of 244Pu on Earth points to rarity of actinide nucleosynthesis
Authors:
Wallner et al
Abstract:
Half of the heavy elements including all actinides are produced in r-process nucleosynthesis whose sites and history still remain a mystery. If continuously produced, the Interstellar Medium (ISM) is expected to build up a quasi-steady state of abundances of short-lived nuclides (with half-lives less than 100My), including actinides produced in r-process nucleosynthesis. Their existence in today's ISM would serve as a radioactive clock and would establish that their production was recent. In particular 244Pu, a radioactive actinide nuclide (81 My half-life), can place strong constraints on recent r-process frequency and production yield. Here we report on the detection of live interstellar 244Pu, archived in Earth's deep-sea floor during the last 25 My, at abundances lower by about two orders of magnitude than expected from continuous production in the Galaxy. This large discrepancy may signal a rarity of actinide r-process nucleosynthesis sites, compatible with neutron-star mergers or with a small subset of actinide-producing supernovae.
Abiotic O2 Levels on Planets around F, G, K, and M Stars: Possible False Positives for Life?
Authors:
Harman et al
Abstract:
In the search for life on Earth-like planets around other stars, the first (and likely only) information will come from the spectroscopic characterization of the planet's atmosphere. Of the countless number of chemical species terrestrial life produces, only a few have the distinct spectral features and the necessary atmospheric abundance to be detectable. The easiest of these species to observe in Earth's atmosphere is O2 (and its photochemical byproduct, O3). But O2 can also be produced abiotically by photolysis of CO2, followed by recombination of O atoms with each other. CO is produced in stoichiometric proportions. Whether O2 and CO can accumulate to appreciable concentrations depends on the ratio of far-UV to near-UV radiation coming from the planet's parent star and on what happens to these gases when they dissolve in a planet's oceans. Using a one-dimensional photochemical model, we demonstrate that O2 derived from CO2 photolysis should not accumulate to measurable concentrations on planets around F- and G-type stars. K-star, and especially M-star planets, however, may build up O2 because of the low near-UV flux from their parent stars, in agreement with some previous studies. On such planets, a 'false positive' for life is possible if recombination of dissolved CO and O2 in the oceans is slow and if other O2 sinks (e.g., reduced volcanic gases or dissolved ferrous iron) are small. O3, on the other hand, could be detectable at UV wavelengths (λ less than 300 nm) for a much broader range of boundary conditions and stellar types.
Origin of Interplanetary Dust through Optical Properties of Zodiacal Light
Authors:
Yang et al
Abstract:
This study investigates the origin of interplanetary dust particles (IDPs) through the optical properties, albedo and spectral gradient, of zodiacal light. The optical properties were compared with those of potential parent bodies in the solar system, which include D-type (as analogue of cometary nuclei), C-type, S-type, X-type, and B-type asteroids. We applied Bayesian inference on the mixture model made from the distribution of these sources, and found that >90% of the interplanetary dust particles originate from comets (or its spectral analogues, D-type asteroids). Although some classes of asteroids (C-type and X-type) may make a moderate contribution, ordinary chondrite-like particles from S-type asteroids occupy a negligible fraction of the interplanetary dust cloud complex. The overall optical properties of the zodiacal light were similar to those of chondritic porous IDPs, supporting the dominance of cometary particles in zodiacal cloud.
The AU Mic Debris Disk: far-infrared and submillimeter resolved imaging
Authors:
Matthews et al
Abstract:
We present far-infrared and submillimeter maps from the Herschel Space Observatory and the James Clerk Maxwell Telescope of the debris disk host star AU Microscopii. Disk emission is detected at 70, 160, 250, 350, 450, 500 and 850 micron. The disk is resolved at 70, 160 and 450 micron. In addition to the planetesimal belt, we detect thermal emission from AU Mic's halo for the first time. In contrast to the scattered light images, no asymmetries are evident in the disk. The fractional luminosity of the disk is 3.9×10−4 and its mm-grain dust mass is 0.01 MEarth (+/- 20%). We create a simple spatial model that reconciles the disk SED as a blackbody of 53 +/- 2 K (a composite of 39 and 50 K components) and the presence of small (non-blackbody) grains which populate the extended halo. The best fit model is consistent with the "birth ring" model explored in earlier works, i.e., an edge-on dust belt extending from 8.8-40 AU, but with an additional halo component with an r−1.5 surface density profile extending to the limits of sensitivity (140 AU). We confirm that AU Mic does not exert enough radiation force to blow out grains. For stellar mass loss rates of 10-100x solar, compact (zero porosity) grains can only be removed if they are very small, consistently with previous work, if the porosity is 0.9, then grains approaching 0.1 micron can be removed via corpuscular forces (i.e., the stellar wind).
Physical processes in protoplanetary disks
Authors:
Armitage et al
Abstract:
This review introduces physical processes in protoplanetary disks relevant to accretion and the initial stages of planet formation. After reprising the elementary theory of disk structure and evolution, I discuss the gas-phase physics of angular momentum transport through turbulence and disk winds, and how this may be related to episodic accretion observed in Young Stellar Objects. Turning to solids, I review the evolution of single particles under aerodynamic forces, and describe the conditions necessary for the development of collective gas-particle instabilities. Observations show that disks are not always radially smooth axisymmetric structures, and I discuss how gas and particle processes can interact to form observable large-scale structure (at ice lines, vortices and in zonal flows). I conclude with disk dispersal.
