Archivo de imágenes de Hubble

Disco de hidra TW

Comparison images from the Hubble Space Telescope, taken several years apart, have uncovered two eerie shadows moving counterclockwise across a gas-and-dust disk encircling the young star TW Hydrae. The disks are tilted face-on to Earth and so give astronomers a bird's-eye view o...

Fecha
Jan 1, 2023
Misión
Hubble Space Telescope
ID de archivo
hubblesite-images-2023-011-01gytfc2x4y0ybxgrzagzn51hr
Por

Comparison images from the Hubble Space Telescope, taken several years apart, have uncovered two eerie shadows moving counterclockwise across a gas-and-dust disk encircling the young star TW Hydrae. The disks are tilted face-on to Earth and so give astronomers a bird's-eye view of what's happening around the star. The left image, taken in 2016, shows just one shadow [A] at the 11:00 o'clock position. This shadow is cast by an inner disk that is slightly inclined to the outer disk and so blocks starlight. The picture on the left shows a second shadow that emerged from yet another nested disk [C] at the 7:00 o’clock position, as photographed in 2021. The original inner disk is marked [B] in this later view. The shadows rotate around the star at different rates like the hands on a clock. They are evidence for two unseen planets that have pulled dust into their orbits. This makes them slightly inclined to each other. This is a visible-light photo taken with the Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph. Artificial color, to enhance details, has been added.

Credits

Image

NASA, ESA, STScI, John Debes (AURA/STScI for ESA)

Image Processing

Joseph DePasquale (STScI)

Detalles de la imagen

About The Object
Object NameTW Hydrae
Object DescriptionFace-on protoplanetary disk around a T Tauri star
R.A. Position11:01:51.9054
Dec. Position-34:42:17.0316
ConstellationHydra
Distance196 light-years
DimensionsEach image is 6.14 arcsec across, about 0.005 light-years
About The Data
Data DescriptionThe HST observations include those from program (J. Debes)
InstrumentSTIS/MIRVIS
Exposure DatesJune 7, 2021
FiltersMIRVIS
About The Image
Color InfoThe images are separate exposures acquired by the STIS instrument on the Hubble Space Telescope. The color results from assigning an orange hue to a monochromatic (grayscale) image.

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