Astronomers find crazy star surrounded by disk of water ice

Using a sophisticated telescope, researchers recently found frozen water in a disk of material surrounding a distant star, according to a new study.

The study team found ice circling HD 100546, a 10 million-year-old star located 320 light years from Earth.

The star is well-known to astronomers and the Hubble Space Telescope had revealed the flat disk encircling the star has complex spiral patterns of unknown origin.

Using specialized equipment to spot the special star

To spot the frozen water, the study team used the Near-Infrared Coronagraphic Imager (NICI) installed on the Gemini South Telescope in Chile. This instrument is a camera made to survey large, gaseous planets like Jupiter. It enables astronomers to look for these planets around local stars by spectrally differencing two pictures taken in or alongside strong, near-infrared methane features in the atmosphere of large gas giants.

The researchers removed the scattered light spectra of various parts of the protoplanetary disk around HD 100546. These light observations complemented thermal observations and models made with spectroscopic information. The NICI helped researchers see an interesting absorption feature in the scattered light spectrum of the detected disk. The team connected this feature with the existence of water ice grains.

The study team said the shallowness of this ice absorption feature means a loss of ice grains at the disk’s exterior.

“In almost all the regions, relatively shallow three µm absorption feature is present in their spectra likely due to water ice grains, indicating that the water ice grains present in the disk surface,” the study said.

Previous reports claimed water ice grains can be swiftly destroyed at the disk exterior around stars like HD 100546 as a result of strong ultraviolet radiation.

The study could offer new insights on planet formation theories as water ice is considered to play many critical roles in planet formation. For example, ice increases the exterior density of solid material in the cold outer section of a protoplanetary disk, which encourages the formation of cores of gaseous planets.

“The ice sublimation/condensation front called snowline is considered to be the boundary of the forming regions of the terrestrial and Jovian planets. Snowline is also suggested as a possible forming site of the planetesimals,” the researchers wrote.

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Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

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