-- Rick Weiss
Star Gap Is a Puzzler
Using the sensitive infrared spectrograph on NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope, University of Rochester astronomers earlier this year observed the gap, which appears like a moat, surrounding CoKu Tau 4, a young star about 1 million years old.
University of Rochester astronomer Dan Watson, who led the original investigation, said in a telephone interview that the only explanation that appeared to make sense was that a planet -- even younger than the star -- was plowing a trough in the disc and had taken up all the material in the gap.
The brownish gum that bleeds out of a poppy plant is raw opium.
(File Photo)
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"All young stars have discs around them, and they tend to be dusty and dense," Watson said. And although "there are many ways to make holes in the discs," he added, most of these methods "will not work in such a short time."
Planets eventually form from the material in dust discs, but not -- at least according to prevailing theories -- so quickly.
Still, Watson said: "It's likely there's a compact object in the disk," and that object is quite likely a planet, perhaps 500,000 years old.
Last week, a second team of University of Rochester astronomers reported that by analyzing Watson's data, they were able to demonstrate that a Saturn-sized planet or larger could have dug the trough surrounding CoKu Tau 4.
The trouble is that nobody can explain how.
"It's very contentious," Watson said, and he doesn't have a hypothesis, either, at least "nothing I would bet the farm on."
-- Guy Gugliotta
