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Swarms of Pluto-Size Objects Kick Up Dust


Waspie_Dwarf

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Swarms of Pluto-Size Objects Kick Up Dust around Adolescent Sun-Like Star

Astronomers using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) may have detected the dusty hallmarks of an entire family of Pluto-size objects swarming around an adolescent version of our own Sun.

By making detailed observations of the protoplanetary disk surrounding the star known as HD 107146, the astronomers detected an unexpected increase in the concentration of millimeter-size dust grains in the disk's outer reaches. This surprising increase, which begins remarkably far -- about 13 billion kilometers -- from the host star, may be the result of Pluto-size planetesimals stirring up the region, causing smaller objects to collide and blast themselves apart.

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The article refers to a gap in this disk of scattered material. That may indicate, we're told, the presence of a planet of approximately Earth's mass. Interesting, considering the fact that none of the known objects in the similar structure in our own solar system, namely the Kuiper Belt, approach anywhere near this mass. Perhaps this other star system has substantially more material in that region, and so can produce larger bodies.

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This seems a little far fetched because their angular velocities would need to be caused by something else other than disk aggregation:

causing smaller objects to collide and blast themselves apart
Edited by keithisco
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This seems a little far fetched because their angular velocities would need to be caused by something else other than disk aggregation:

What makes you think that their angular velocities won't be sufficient?

It would make a pleasant change to see you back up one of your many negative claims with evidence just one time.

Edited by Waspie_Dwarf
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