Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) Santiago Central Offices, Alonso de Córdova 3107, Vitacura, Casilla 763 0355, Santiago, Chile.
Science. 2014 Mar 28;343(6178):1490-2. doi: 10.1126/science.1248726. Epub 2014 Mar 6.
Many stars are surrounded by disks of dusty debris formed in the collisions of asteroids, comets, and dwarf planets, but is gas also released in such events? Observations at submillimeter wavelengths of the archetypal debris disk around β Pictoris show that 0.3% of a Moon mass of carbon monoxide orbits in its debris belt. The gas distribution is highly asymmetric, with 30% found in a single clump 85 astronomical units from the star, in a plane closely aligned with the orbit of the inner planet, β Pictoris b. This gas clump delineates a region of enhanced collisions, either from a mean motion resonance with an unseen giant planet or from the remnants of a collision of Mars-mass planets.
许多恒星被由小行星、彗星和矮行星碰撞产生的尘埃碎片盘所环绕，但在这些事件中是否也会释放出气体？对β Pictoris 典型碎片盘中毫米波的观测显示，其碎片带中约有 0.3%的质量是一氧化碳。该气体分布具有高度的不对称性，30%的一氧化碳集中在距离恒星 85 个天文单位的一个单一团块中，该团块所在的平面与内行星β Pictoris b 的轨道紧密对齐。这个气体团块划定了一个碰撞增强的区域，这可能是由于与未知巨型行星的平均运动共振，或者是由于火星质量大小的行星碰撞的残余物。
