Submillimeter Array on Maunakea illuminates birth of planetary system

University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa

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An observatory on Maunakea played a pivotal role in a groundbreaking study that sheds light on the birth and evolution of planetary systems. Using the Submillimeter Array (SMA), an astronomer from the University of Hawaiʻi helped capture crystal-clear images of exocomet belts-regions around stars where icy and rocky objects called exocomets are found.

The study captured images of the light emitted from millimeter-sized pebbles within exocomet belts surrounding 74 stars near Earth. It represents the largest survey of such objects to date. The belts are tens to hundreds of times further from their star than the Earth is from the Sun and are exceptionally cold, with temperatures ranging from -250 to -150 degrees Celsius, where most compounds, including water, are frozen as ice. This makes these belts critical ice reservoirs within planetary systems.

UH astronomer Jonathan Williams from the Institute for Astronomy has studied planet forming disks for more than 20 years.

"This work helps us understand the origins of our own Solar System," Williams explained. "Like most abstract scientific research, the impact on people's daily lives is minimal, but it contributes to the body of knowledge that ultimately changes humanity's perspective on their place in the universe."

Belt ʻdisks'

Led by Luca Matra, an astrophysicist from Trinity College Dublin, the REASONS (REsolved ALMA and SMA Observations of Nearby Stars) study leveraged the combined capabilities of the SMA and the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) in Chile. These observatories observed electromagnetic radiation at millimeter and submillimeter wavelengths, providing the most detailed information yet on exocomets and their belts.

"The images reveal a remarkable diversity in the structure of belts. Some are narrow rings, as in the canonical picture of a 'belt' like our Solar System's Edgeworth-Kuiper belt. But a larger number of them are wide, and probably better described as 'disks' rather than rings," said study coauthor Sebastián Marino, Royal Society University Research Fellow at the University of Exeter.

Exocomet collisions

Exocomets are often larger than 1 kilometer in size and collide within these belts to create the smaller pebbles observed in the study. These belts are not unique to a select few systems-they are found in at least 20% of planetary systems, including our own.

"The REASONS dataset of belt and planetary system properties will enable studies of the birth and evolution of these belts, as well as follow-up observations across the wavelength range, from James Webb Space Telescope to the next generation of Extremely Large Telescopes and ALMA's upcoming ARKS Large Program to zoom even further onto the details of these belts," said coauthor David Wilner at the Center for Astrophysics | Harvard and Smithsonian.

The team of scientists part of this study include Williams (UH IfA), Matra (Trinity College), Marino (University of Exeter), Wilner (Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics) and 18 other coauthors from across Europe and the U.S.

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