Asteroid Belt Discovered Around Our Sun's "Twin"

Posted by Hemos on Monday April 25, 2005 @02:17AM from the making-it-visible dept.

loid_void writes "that the National Geographic is reporting evidence of a massive asteroid belt around a "twin" of our own sun has been found. Kim Weaver, a Spitzer Space Telescope scientist, said the finding marks "the first time that scientists have found evidence for a massive asteroid belt around a mature, sunlike star." "This region around the star is the sort of place where rocky planets [like Earth] may form," The star, dubbed HD69830, is some 41 light-years away--which, in space terms, is practically our own backyard. Part of the constellation Puppis, the star is a tad too faint to see with the unaided eye."

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Re:The elements have to go somewhere by helioquake · 2005-04-25 03:19 · Score: 3, Interesting

Why do you think they didn't coalesce into rocky planets? There could certainly be some, but I doubt they would be habitable.

...maybe not yet. The timescale of these dusts and rocks to coalesce is hard to estimate. Someday (in a few hundred million years) some planets -- gas or solid -- may form out of them.

I wouldn't be surprised if some planet searchers go after this star to see if its spectral lines "wobble", i.e., detecting the sign of an orbiting object(s) around the star (or have they done it?).