They capture the glow of a large planetary collision in outer space

2023-10-11 19:18:04

Updated Wednesday, October 11, 2023 – 19:18

The researchers conclude that the “most likely” explanation is that two ice giant exoplanets collided

Colisin simulation

Of the large ice planets colliding with each other as they rotate around a star similar to the Sun, creating a glow of light and plumes of dust, is what has been observed, for the first time, by an international team that publishes a study in Nature.

The results of the team, led among others by the University of Leiden (Netherlands), show the heat glow and the resulting dust cloud, which moved in front of the parent star, obscuring it over time.

The first clue about this great explosion was given by an astronomy fan who observed the light curve of the star and he noticed something strange about it, because the system doubled its brightness in infrared wavelengths about three years before the star began to fade in visible light. Experts considered this observation somewhat surprising and began to follow it with a network of telescopes, explained Matthew Kenworthy, co-author of the study and from Leiden University.

The network of professional and amateur astronomers studied the star, named as ASASSN-21qj, and monitor changes in its brightness over the next two years. The researchers concluded that the “most likely” explanation is that two ice giant exoplanets collided, producing the infrared glow detected by NASA’s NEOWISE mission, which uses a space telescope to search for asteroids and comets.

Computer calculations and models indicate that the temperature and size of the bright material, as well as the amount of time the glow has lasted, “is consistent with the collision of two ice giant exoplanets,” added another of the study’s authors, Simon Lock, from the University of Bristol.

The debris cloud resulting from impact It moved in front of the star about three years later, causing a decrease in its brightness at visible wavelengths.

Now it is expected that, in the coming years, the dust cloud will begin to disperse along the orbit of the remnant of the collision and this phenomenon can be detected both with ground-based telescopes and with the special James Webb telescope.