FUSE On-lines Articles and Press Releases

This page contains text of on-line stories about FUSE Beta Pic results.

The original press release is NASA'S FUSE Finds Infant Solar System Awash in Carbon, (NASA News Release).
Also covered by:

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Nearby Star System Could Spawn Carbon-Rich Planets (NG)

National Geographic
,
June 8, 2006

An unexpectedly large amount of carbonthe basis of life as we
know itsurrounds a young nearby star where astronomers believe
rocky planets are forming, according to a new study.

Such an environment might spawn tar-covered, diamond-rich
worlds and life-forms that consume oxygen-rich foods, one
scientist speculates.

The carbon discovery challenges ideas about the planets forming
around the star in question, Beta Pictoris. The star is 63
light-years away and about twice the size of our sun.

"This is different than we expected," said Aki Roberge, an
astronomer at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt,
Maryland.

Many astronomers believe the Beta Pictoris system is similar to
our solar system when it was much younger and the planets,
including Earth, were forming. Beta Pictoris is thought to be
between 8 and 20 million years old. Our solar system is at least
4.54 billion years old, scientists say.

Some evidence suggests a giant gas planet like Jupiter has
already formed in the dusty disk around Beta Pictoris. Scientists
believe terrestrial planets with land, such as Mercury, Venus,
Earth, and Mars, are forming right now.

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Infant Solar System Drenched In Carb (DISC)

By Irene Klotz

Discovery Channel
,
June 8, 2006

From all outward appearances, one of the most studied stars
in the galaxy, Beta Pictoris, seems to be following the same evolutionary
path as our sun.

Though twice the size of the sun and nine times hotter, Beta Pictoris'
asteroids and comets are smashing into each other, creating a rich cloud of
gas and dust from which planets can be, and likely already are, forming.

Scientists believe our sun went through a similar process during its
planet-building phase more than four billion years ago.

But in a breakthrough finding, a young NASA scientist turned up something
completely unexpected: The star's planet-forming, 200-billion-mile diameter
disk has whopping amounts of carbon gas, a composition quite different than
the sun's.

"It's unusual because the central star doesn't appear to have a different
composition than the sun. It appears normal," said Aki Roberge, a
post-doctoral fellow at the Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md.,
and the lead author of a research paper about the discovery published in
this week's issue of the journal Nature.

The sun has about half as much carbon as oxygen. But Beta Pictoris, which is
between eight and 20 million years old, has nine times more carbon than
oxygen, Roberge said.

"Carbon is extremely overabundant relative to every other measured element,"
the authors wrote in Nature.

The star is about 50 light years away from Earth in the southern
constellation Pictor.

Roberge speculates our solar system may have gone through a similar
carbon-rich phase, a previously undetected evolutionary steppingstone.

She points to findings from NASA's July 2005 comet-smashing Deep Impact
mission, which showed high levels of carbon-based materials jetting from
Comet Temple 1 after it was struck by an 820-pound metal projectile.

"It could be just a phase that the asteroids and comets go through, and then
they end up looking like ours when they mature," Roberge said in an
interview with Discovery News.

Another possibility is that Beta Pictoris is making a system similar in
structure to our solar system, but vastly different in content. Rather than
silicate cores, Beta Pictoris' terrestrial planets could be made of graphite
and diamonds, and its comets may carry methane ice rather than frozen water..

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Baby Solar System Found Full Of Carbon (UPI)

United Press International
,
June 8, 2006

GREENBELT, Md., June 7 (UPI) -- NASA scientists using the agency's Far
Ultraviolet Spectroscopic Explorer have found abundant amounts of carbon gas
around a young star.

Astronomers say the star, Beta Pictoris, and its emerging solar system are
less than 20 million years old and planets may have already formed. The
abundance of carbon gas in the remaining debris disk indicates Beta
Pictoris' planets could be carbon-rich worlds of graphite and methane, or
the star's environs might resemble our own solar system in its early days.

The new measurements make Beta Pictoris the first disk of its kind whose gas
has been comprehensively studied. The discovery also settles a long-standing
scientific mystery about how the gas has lingered in this debris disk, yet
raises new questions about the development of solar systems.

A team led by Aki Roberge of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in
Greenbelt, Md., presents the observation in the June 8 issue of the journal
nature.

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Mysterious Carbon Excess Found In Infant Solar System (PO)

PhysOrg.com ,
June 8, 2006

Astronomers detected unusually high quantities of carbon, the basis of all
terrestrial life, in an infant solar system around nearby star Beta
Pictoris, 63 light-years away.

"For years we've looked to this early forming solar system as one that might
be going through the same processes our own solar system did when the rocky
planets, including Earth, were forming," commented lead author Aki Roberge,
who began the research while at Carnegie's Department of Terrestrial
Magnetism. "But we got a big surprise--there is much more carbon gas than we
expected. Something very different is going on." The research, published in
the June 8, 2006, Nature, suggests that either carbon-rich asteroids or
comets, unlike any in our own solar system, have vaporized, or that bodies
outgassing carbon-bearing species such as methane contribute the curious
carbon excess.

Dusty, gaseous disks around stars are the birthplaces of planetary systems.
Carnegie researcher Alycia Weinberger, co-author of the study, explains:
"Since we can't observe our own solar system as it was 4.5 billion years
ago, we look at young stars to learn about the evolution of planet-forming
disks. Ultimately, we want to understand the environments and processes
around other stars that lead to the rise of life."

The new research was made possible by FUSE--NASA's Far Ultraviolet
Spectroscopic Explorer--and data from the Hubble Space Telescope's imaging
spectrograph. Beta Pictoris is almost twice the mass of our Sun and between
8 and 20 million years old. Previous studies indicated that the gas around
the star had a composition of elements very similar to that in our own solar
system. The new measurements mark the "most complete inventory of gas in any
debris disk," and may radically change the picture.

"Astronomers have been puzzled by the very existence of the gaseous disk for
some time," commented Roberge. "The star's radiation should blow the gas
away, so we should not be able to see gas orbiting the star at all." For a
long time it was thought that maybe there was a hidden mass of gas, perhaps
hydrogen, which braked the outflow, just as water slows a swimmer. Now, the
authors think the mystery braking material is the ionized carbon (atoms
which have lost an electron giving them a net positive charge). Ions attract
and repel each other due to electrostatic force. Carbon is not blown away
from the star, so the ionized carbon seen is very good at slowing down the
other gaseous ions.

What the data do not answer, however, is what put the carbon there in the
first place. The astronomers compared the elemental composition of the gas
with that of dust from Halley's Comet, a very old type of meteorite, and the
elemental abundances of our Sun. "It didn't match up at all," remarked
Roberge.

The surprisingly carbon-rich gas points in two possible directions. The
asteroids and comets orbiting Beta Pictoris might contain large amounts of
carbon-rich material like graphite and methane. Planets that formed out of
such bodies would be very different from those in the solar system, and
might have methane-rich atmospheres, like Titan, a moon of Saturn. Or the
Beta Pictoris asteroids and comets might be just like the ones in our solar
system when they were young. At that time, they might have contained much
more organic material than asteroids and comets appear to today. If so, more
of the building blocks of life were delivered to the early Earth than was
previously thought.

Commenting on how to determine where the carbon originated, Weinberger
noted: "If we could figure out how carbon-rich the dust near the star is,
which may be possible with future large infrared telescopes, we could figure
out if the dust is a plausible source of the carbon." In a break-up of a
planetesimal, all the elements found in meteorites would be produced, so the
dust would match that of a meteorite. These collisions are almost certainly
happening in the portion of the Beta Pictoris disk near the star. Icy
bodies, fairly far from the star, could be losing volatile methane, but not
water. And this would enrich the disk in carbon and hydrogen.

Are systems like Beta Pictoris common or rare? This information would help
scientists to better understand the implications of the current work. Beta
Pictoris is by far the best-studied disk of its kind and the only one in
which the gas has been observed in this much detail. This situation will
very likely remain the case until the advent of a future ultraviolet space
telescope, or large ground-based telescope facilities operating at radio
wavelengths, such as the Atacama Large Millimeter Array, scheduled for
completion in 2012.

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New, Rocky Planets May Be Around Star (HC)

By Mark Carreau

Houston Chronicle ,
June 8, 2006

Rocky planets may now be forming around a young star the same way Earth,
Mars, Venus and Mercury formed around the sun billions of years ago, NASA
astronomers said on Thursday.

Evidence of primitive planet formation was first observed around Beta
Pictoris 20 years ago. A swirling disk of colliding asteroids and comets
suggested the presence of a gas planet at least the size of Jupiter.

The latest findings reveal a surprising abundance of carbon-rich gas in the
disk, about 60 light-years from Earth. As the pieces of colliding material
coalesce, the carbon suggests they are rocky, said astronomer Aki Roberge of
the Goddard Space Flight Center, who led the study team.

The presumed planets are too small to be observed directly.

"Beta Pictoris could be like a time machine offering us a glimpse of our
solar system in its infancy, or perhaps it's showing us the formation of an
alternate solar system, exotic by comparison," said Kim Weaver, a Goddard
astronomer who wasn't directly involved in the study.

The observations with the Far Ultraviolet Spectroscopic Explorer, a
7-year-old NASA space telescope, will be published today in the British
science journal Nature.

The sun and the planets formed about 4.5 billion years ago.

The planet-building under way at Beta Pictoris, a star about twice as large
as the sun, has been under way for about 20 million years, the study team
said.

If the activities at Beta Pictoris are not leading to the formation of
planets that closely resemble the Earth, then something more unusual may be
unfolding, said Marc Kuchner, another Goddard scientist involved in the
study.

The young planets could be so abundant in carbon that the terrain would be
rich in graphite, the material found in pencil lead, soot and petroleum
products such as propane and butane. Under the pressures required for planet
formation, some of the graphite would be converted into vast diamond
deposits.

"Beta Pictoris may be telling us something about the variety of planets that
might be out there. Some might be carbon planets, very different from the
Earth," Kuchner said.

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Star's Dusty Disc Could Create Exotic Worlds (NSS)

By Maggie McKee

New Scientist
,
June 8, 2006

Observers on Earth get an edge-on view of the disc around Beta Pictoris,
whose starlight has been blocked in this false-colour infrared image (Image:
J.-L. Beuzit et al./Grenoble Obs/ESO)

Twice as much carbon gas as expected lies in a dusty disc around the star
Beta Pictoris, new observations reveal.

The find suggests the disc is either experiencing a carbon-rich stage that
could eventually evolve into a planetary system like our own - or that it
could breed exotic worlds with diamond mountains and methane skies.

Carbon has previously been detected around the star, which is about twice as
massive as the Sun and lies 60 light years away. But those measurements were
based on the relatively faint light that is emitted by carbon gas in the
disc.

Now researchers have used NASA's Far Ultraviolet Spectroscopic Explorer
(FUSE) to make the most accurate measurements yet of gas in a dusty disc.
The disc lies "edge-on" as seen from Earth, so FUSE measured how much light
from the star was absorbed after it passed through the disc.

"We measured gas in a radial cut, like a spoke," says team leader Aki
Roberge of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland, US. "We can get
quite sensitive observations because the star is pretty bright." Carbon-rich
phase

The researchers found that the disc contains nine times as much carbon as
oxygen - twice the ratio found in Beta Pictoris itself or in the Sun. That
suggests two different possibilities for what could be taking place in the
disc.

The disc itself is thought to be generated by the collision of comets and
asteroids around the young star, which is about 20 million years old. And
the inner region of the disc appears to be warped, suggesting there is a
Jupiter-sized planet in orbit around the star.

So one possibility is that the disc is in a carbon-rich phase, which occurs
with all discs. "Maybe this is just a transient phase that inevitably
happens," Roberge told New Scientist.

One explanation for this is that the decay of radioactive isotopes inside
asteroids and comets causes them to heat up and evaporate their carbon gas
when they reach a certain temperature.

If the carbon-rich phase is indeed universal, that suggests our own solar
system went through a similar phase about 4.6 billion years ago. And in
fact, a small percentage of meteorites found on Earth do show signs of
having been carbon-rich at some point in their histories, says Marc Kuchner
of Goddard, who was not part of the team. Giant diamonds

But the new research also raises the intriguing possibility that the
asteroids and comets around Beta Pictoris simply contain more carbon than
those in our solar system.

Kuchner has previously modelled what planets made from these carbon-rich
building blocks would be like. "They might be covered with tar and smog,
with mountains made of giant diamonds. Life on such a planet is not
implausible, but it certainly would be exotic."

Roberge says this interpretation is interesting but she finds it difficult
to explain why there would be more carbon in the disc than in Beta Pictoris
itself. "It's hard to understand why the disc could be different than the
star," she says.

But she says that if future observations reveal methane gas or carbon-rich
dust grains in the disc, they might point in the direction of these "weirdo"
worlds.

"I can't decide which idea would be cooler," she says. "On the one hand,
it's fun to think about carbon planets with diamond layers and methane
atmospheres. But the idea of getting a peek at what happened in our solar
system when it was really young - that's pretty exciting, too." Huge
diversity

Kuchner agrees. "It shows us a system that we think superficially looks like
the solar system, but when we look up close, it's totally different. It
hints at the vast range of possibilities that might be out there," he told
New Scientist.

Roberge says observations of more discs could help researchers understand
how to interpret the carbon in Beta Pictoris's disc. "I'd really like to get
a better handle on whether this is a general process or something freakish,"
she says.

There are a handful of other edge-on discs that researchers could study. But
at the moment only NASA's FUSE satellite can do the observations and it is
not clear how much longer the seven-year-old spacecraft will last.

If the Hubble Space Telescope is serviced, it could be fitted with a new
spectrograph that could also make the observations.

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Star's Planets Might Have Mountains Of Diamonds (SPACE)

By Ker Than

SPACE.com ,
June 8, 2006

Scientists have detected large amounts of carbon gas in a newly forming
solar system around Beta Pictoris, a nearby young star.

The finding, detailed in the June 8 issue of the journal Nature, explains
why the star's planet-forming debris disk is enshrouded in a thick cloud of
gas. This is a mystery that has vexed scientists for years. According to
theory, the gas shouldn't be there at all.

"The star's radiation should blow the gas away," said study team-member Aki
Roberge of NASA Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland.

But carbon has specific atomic quirks that render it immune to most of the
energy pouring out of the star as light. Like a ghostly fog that no wind can
disperse, the carbon-rich gas encircling Beta Pictoris is oblivious to the
gale-like solar radiation blustering through it.

The new finding raises the possibility that in a few million years time,
Beta Pictoris could be home to bizarre alien worlds that sound like
something dreamed up by astronomers who've read too much science-fiction.

"If carbon-rich worlds are forming in Beta Pictoris, they might be covered
with tar and smog, with mountains made of giant diamonds," said Marc
Kuchner, an expert on extrasolar planets also from Goddard. Kuchner, who was
not involved in the study, said that "life on such a planet is not
implausible, but it certainly would be exotic."

Beta Pic

Beta Pictorisor simply Beta Pic to astronomersis located some 60
light-years away. It is nearly twice as large as our Sun and less than 20
million years old. Scientists had previously thought that the gas around the
young star had a similar element composition to gas in our own solar system..

The reason the gas could resist Beta Pic's strong stellar gusts was that
some hidden mass of hydrogen or other gas was acting to "brake" the outflow,
according to the earlier thinking.

But the new finding, made by NASA's Far Ultraviolet Spectroscopic Explorer
(FUSE) and data from the Hubble Space Telescope, reveals that the braking
material is actually carbon, which is very abundant in Beta Pic compared to
other elements.

Carbon doesn't feel strong radiation pressure from Beta Pic's light the way
that other heavier elements such as nickel and iron do. It absorbs most
strongly in the far-ultraviolet rangea band that Beta Pic doesn't radiate
much in.

Like science-fiction

Scientists think the carbon is formed during collisions of asteroids and
comets in Beta Pic's debris disk with each other. For this explanation to
work, however, the asteroids and comets would need to be very carbon-rich
themselves, but so far the ones scientists have analyzed in our solar system
don�t fit this criterion.

This leaves two possibilities, scientists say. The first is that the
asteroids and comets around Beta Pic contain more carbon-rich materials such
as graphite and methane than the ones in our solar system.

This could have interesting consequences for future planets that might form
around Beta Pic. Rocky bodies such as comets and asteroids are thought to be
the building blocks of terrestrial Earth-like planets. According to the
standard "core accretion" model of planet formation, these rocky bodies
collide and clump together, growing larger and larger until they reach
planethood.

If the planetary building blocks in Beta Pic are fundamentally different
from those that existed in our early solar system, then any planets forming
there will also be differentperhaps radically so.

"It could eventually lead to the creation of very exotic planets, like those
in the realm of science fiction almost," Roberge told SPACE.com.

In addition to diamond mountains, such planets might also have methane
atmospheres like Saturn's moon Titan.

Another explanation

The second possibility is that the asteroids and comets around Beta Pic only
appear exotic because they're young. According to this scenario, the
asteroids and comets in our own solar system were also carbon-rich long ago
but their compositions changed over time due to some unknown process.

This would mean that Beta Pic's solar system is a close analogue of what our
early solar system was like and that future planets forming there might one
day resemble the ones here.

"We might be observing processes that occurred early in our solar system's
development," said study team-member Alycia Weinberger of the Carnegie
Institution of Washington.

This scenario has interesting implications for the evolution of life on
Earth, the researchers say.

Scientists think that asteroids and comets bombarded early Earth for the
first few million years after it formed. This constant pummeling was a good
thing in the long run because it delivered virtually all of the water and
organic material to Earth that makes life possible.

If comets and asteroids contained more carbon during our solar system�s
infancy than they do now, then more organic material might have been
delivered to early-Earth than previously thought.

Roberge said that scientists will have to await the deployment of some
future ultraviolet space telescope to test which of these two explanations
are true. The Atacama Large Millimeter Array, a ground-based radio telescope
scheduled for completion in 2012 might also work, she said.

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Primeval solar system discovered
Mail & Guardian
http://www.mg.co.za/articlepage.aspx?area=/breaking_news/breaking_news__international_news/&articleid=273971

Washington, United States
08 June 2006 12:44

Two United States astronomers have discovered huge quantities of carbon gas
mixed with a cloud of dust surrounding a young, yellow star that could
resemble our own solar system at its inception, the National Aeronautics and
Space Administration (Nasa) said.

The star, called Beta Pictoris, and its emerging solar system in which
planets could already be forming, is less than 20-million years old, said
the researchers who made their discovery with the Far Ultraviolet
Spectroscopic Explorer satellite launched in 1999.

The abundance of carbon gas in the dust disk surrounding the star means that
the planets being formed could be rich in graphite and methane, much like
those of our solar system in their early stages.

The research of the team of astronomers led by Aki Roberge, of Nasa's
Goddard Flight Centre, outside Washington, is published in Thursday's issue
of the British magazine Nature.

"There is much, much more carbon gas than anyone expected," Roberge was
quoted as saying on the Nasa website.

"Could this be what our own solar system looked like when it was young? Are
we seeing the formation of new types of worlds? Either prospect is
fascinating."

First discovered in 1984, Beta Pictoris is located in our galaxy, 60 light
years from Earth and has been measured at 1,8 times the sun's mass.

Images of Beta Pictoris taken by the orbiting Hubble space telescope show it
could have a Jupiter-type planet already and possibly also rocky planets in
the course of formation, astronomers said. -- AFP

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Mysterious carbon excess found in infant solar system
Hindu News Update Service

Washington, D.C., June 8: Astronomers detected unusually high quantities of
carbon, the basis of all terrestrial life, in an infant solar system around
nearby star Beta Pictoris, 63 light-years away. "For years we've looked to
this early forming solar system as one that might be going through the same
processes our own solar system did when the rocky planets, including Earth,
were forming," commented lead author Aki Roberge,* who began the research
while at Carnegie's Department of Terrestrial Magnetism. "But we got a big
surprise--there is much more carbon gas than we expected. Something very
different is going on."

The research, published in the June 8, 2006, Nature, also released by
EurekAlert, suggests that either carbon-rich asteroids or comets, unlike any
in our own solar system, have vaporized, or that bodies outgassing
carbon-bearing species such as methane contribute the curious carbon excess..

These collisions are almost certainly happening in the portion of the Beta
Pictoris disk near the star. Icy bodies, fairly far from the star, could be
losing volatile methane, but not water. And this would enrich the disk in
carbon and hydrogen.

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Mysterious carbon excess found in infant solar system
http://www.physorg.com/news68907084.html

In the Beta Pictoris Disk. Artist's conception of the dust and gas disk
surrounding the star Beta Pictoris. A giant planet may have already formed
and terrestrial planets may be forming. The inset panels show two possible
outcomes for mature terrestrial planets around Beta Pic. The top one is a
water-rich planet similar to the Earth; the bottom one is a carbon-rich
planet, with a smoggy, methane-rich atmosphere similar to that of Titan, a
moon of Saturn. Credit: NASA/FUSE/Lynette Cook
Astronomers detected unusually high quantities of carbon, the basis of all
terrestrial life, in an infant solar system around nearby star Beta
Pictoris, 63 light-years away.

Source: Carnegie Institution
This news is brought to you by PhysOrg.com

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Baby Solar System Found Full of Carbon
http://science.monstersandcritics.com/news/article_1170937.php/Health_and_Science_News_Roundup

GREENBELT, Md., June 7 (UPI) -- NASA scientists using the agency`s Far
Ultraviolet Spectroscopic Explorer have found abundant amounts of carbon gas
around a young star.

Astronomers say the star, Beta Pictoris, and its emerging solar system are
less than 20 million years old and planets may have already formed. The
abundance of carbon gas in the remaining debris disk indicates Beta
Pictoris` planets could be carbon-rich worlds of graphite and methane, or
the star`s environs might resemble our own solar system in its early days.

A team led by Aki Roberge of NASA`s Goddard Space Flight Center in
Greenbelt, Md., presents the observation in the June 8 issue of the journal
Nature.

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Young Star May Be Encircled By Diamond Studded Planets (VOA)

By David McAlary

Voice of America
,
June 9, 2006

Astronomers have found a star where planets may be forming from
sources extra rich in carbon. If so, experts believe such planets
would be teeming with smoggy atmospheres, tar-covered terrain, and
vast diamond deposits.

Beta Pictoris The planets that could be forming around the star Beta
Pictoris might be a jeweler's dream, but inhospitable to life as we
know it.

Beta Pictoris is nearly twice the mass of our sun, and relatively
close to us in cosmological terms - 60 light years away, the distance
it takes light to travel in 60 years. At less than 20 million years
of age, it is relatively young.

Its carbon-rich environment is a surprise. Ever since astronomers
discovered the gas and dust disk around Beta Pictoris 22 years ago,
they assumed it had the same composition as the one from which our
solar system formed. But they also wondered why the disk lingers when
it should have been blasted away by light particles, called photons,
in the intense radiation from the big, young star.

An answer now comes from a study in the journal Nature, using data
from a U..S. space agency satellite called the Far Ultraviolet
Spectroscopic Explorer, or FUSE.

Aki Roberge Space agency astronomer Aki Roberge says FUSE has
detected an extreme abundance of carbon in the Beta Pictoris nebula -
nearly 20 times as much as thought to have existed in our infant
solar system. She says carbon resists the intense radiation pushing
on it.

"Carbon doesn't get rapidly blown away from the star, because only
high energy photons are capable of pushing the carbon away," she
said. "This star doesn't emit that many high energy photons."

NASA says the carbon comes from asteroids and comets apparently rich
in the element. Since planets build up from asteroid collisions, the
Beta Pictoris research suggests that any forming in that region would
have super-abundances of carbon compounds.

Marc Kuchner A NASA planetary expert, who did not take part in the
study, Marc Kuchner, says this conjures up the image of worlds
covered with sooty methane smog and tar, with mountains made of giant
diamonds.

What would life be like on such a planet?

"Imagine a planet where water is extremely scarce, where oxygen is
extremely scarce, but where compounds like methane, propane, butane,
tar, soot are all available in abundance," he said. "You need an
organism that eats a very different kind of food than foods we eat."

Aki Roberge wonders whether the Beta Pictoris system is unusual for a
solar system or not.

"Beta Pictoris could be like a time machine offering us a glimpse of
our solar system in its infancy," she said. "Or, perhaps it is
showing us the formation of an alternate solar system, exotic by
comparison with our own."

Marc Kuchner would not be surprised if further examination shows the
latter to be true.

"It is not like what we expected," he said. "As we discover new
planetary systems, we keep finding one surprise after another."

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Primeval Solar System Discovered (AFP-Y2)

AFP
,
June 9, 2006

Two US astronomers have discovered huge quantities of carbon gas
mixed with a cloud of dust surrounding a young, yellow star that
could resemble our own solar system at its inception, NASA said.

The star, called Beta Pictoris, and its emerging solar system in
which planets could already be forming is less than 20 million years
old, said the researchers who made their discovery with the Far
Ultraviolet Spectroscopic Explorer (FUSE) satellite launched in 1999.

The abundance of carbon gas in the dust disk surrounding the star
means that the planets being formed could be rich in graphite and
methane much like those of our solar system in their early stages.

The research of the team of astronomers led by Aki Roberge, of the
National Aeronautics and Space Administration's Goddard Flight
Center, outside Washington, is published in Thursday's issue of the
British magazine Nature.

"There is much, much more carbon gas than anyone expected," Roberge
was quoted as saying on the NASA website.

"Could this be what our own solar system looked like when it was
young? Are we seeing the formation of new types of worlds? Either
prospect is fascinating."

First discovered in 1984, Beta Pictoris is located in our galaxy, 60
light years from Earth and has been measured at 1.8 times the Sun's
mass.

Images of Beta Pictoris taken by the orbiting Hubble Space Telescope
show it could have a Jupiter-type planet already and possibly also
rocky planets in the course of formation, astronomers said.

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Star's Dusty Disc Could Create Exotic Worlds (NEWSCIENTIST)

By Maggie McKee

New Scientist
,
June 9, 2006

Eighteen times as much carbon gas as expected lies in a dusty disc
around the star Beta Pictoris, new observations reveal.

The find suggests the disc is either experiencing a carbon-rich stage
that could eventually evolve into a planetary system like our own -
or that it could breed exotic worlds with diamond mountains and
methane skies.

Carbon has previously been detected around the star, which is about
twice as massive as the Sun and lies 60 light years away. But those
measurements were based on the relatively faint light that is emitted
by carbon gas in the disc.

Now researchers have used NASA's Far Ultraviolet Spectroscopic
Explorer (FUSE) to make the most accurate measurements yet of gas in
a dusty disc. The disc lies "edge-on" as seen from Earth, so FUSE
measured how much light from the star was absorbed after it passed
through the disc.

"We measured gas in a radial cut, like a spoke," says team leader Aki
Roberge of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland, US. "We
can get quite sensitive observations because the star is pretty
bright." Carbon-rich phase

The researchers found that the disc contains nine times as much
carbon as oxygen - 18 times the ratio found in Beta Pictoris itself
or in the Sun. That suggests two different possibilities for what
could be taking place in the disc.

The disc itself is thought to be generated by the collision of comets
and asteroids around the young star, which is about 20 million years
old. And the inner region of the disc appears to be warped,
suggesting there is a Jupiter-sized planet in orbit around the star.

So one possibility is that the disc is in a carbon-rich phase, which
occurs with all discs. "Maybe this is just a transient phase that
inevitably happens," Roberge told New Scientist.

One explanation for this is that the decay of radioactive isotopes
inside asteroids and comets causes them to heat up and evaporate
their carbon gas when they reach a certain temperature.

If the carbon-rich phase is indeed universal, that suggests our own
solar system went through a similar phase about 4.6 billion years
ago. And in fact, a small percentage of meteorites found on Earth do
show signs of having been carbon-rich at some point in their
histories, says Marc Kuchner of Goddard, who was not part of the
team. Giant diamonds

But the new research also raises the intriguing possibility that the
asteroids and comets around Beta Pictoris simply contain more carbon
than those in our solar system.

Kuchner has previously modelled what planets made from these
carbon-rich building blocks would be like. "They might be covered
with tar and smog, with mountains made of giant diamonds. Life on
such a planet is not implausible, but it certainly would be exotic."

Roberge says this interpretation is interesting but she finds it
difficult to explain why there would be more carbon in the disc than
in Beta Pictoris itself. "It's hard to understand why the disc could
be different than the star," she says.

But she says that if future observations reveal methane gas or
carbon-rich dust grains in the disc, they might point in the
direction of these "weirdo" worlds.

"I can't decide which idea would be cooler," she says. "On the one
hand, it's fun to think about carbon planets with diamond layers and
methane atmospheres. But the idea of getting a peek at what happened
in our solar system when it was really young - that's pretty
exciting, too." Huge diversity

Kuchner agrees. "It shows us a system that we think superficially
looks like the solar system, but when we look up close, it's totally
different. It hints at the vast range of possibilities that might be
out there," he told New Scientist.

Roberge says observations of more discs could help researchers
understand how to interpret the carbon in Beta Pictoris's disc. "I'd
really like to get a better handle on whether this is a general
process or something freakish," she says.

There are a handful of other edge-on discs that researchers could
study. But at the moment only NASA's FUSE satellite can do the
observations and it is not clear how much longer the seven-year-old
spacecraft will last.

If the Hubble Space Telescope is serviced, it could be fitted with a
new spectrograph that could also make the observations.

Journal reference: Nature (vol 441, p 724)

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The Birth Of Carbon Planets? (S&T)

By Selby Cull

Sky & Telescope
,
June 9, 2006

Exotic planets, dense with diamonds and graphite, might be forming
around a nearby star. Astronomers announced this week that the disk
around the young star Beta Pictoris is brimming with carbon, raising
the possibility that abnormally carbon-rich planets might be forming
there.

The rocky planets in our solar system are made mostly of silicate
minerals such as quartz and feldspar. But last year, Marc Kuchner
(NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center) and Sara Seager (Carnegie
Institution of Washington) presented models showing that silicate
planets aren't the only possibility. If the protoplanetary disk from
which planets form has more carbon than oxygen, then planets based on
carbon minerals would be the norm.

Now, a team studying spectra from NASA's Far Ultraviolet
Spectroscopic Explorer (FUSE) satellite has found just such a disk.
The well-studied debris disk that surrounds Beta Pictoris has almost
20 times more carbon than oxygen; whereas the Sun has only half as
much carbon as oxygen. The roughly 12-million-year-old Beta Pictoris
system is just 63 light-years from Earth, and has long been
considered the classic example of an evolving young planetary system.
But the extraordinary amount of carbon has researchers wondering how
typical it actually is.

A carbon-based planet (top) might have a core similar to Earth's
(bottom), but its mantle and crust would be far more carbon-rich.
Researchers speculate that the high pressures in the crust might
create a thick layer of diamonds within the planet's crust. S&T:
Gregg Dinderman. Source: Marc Kuchner / Sara Seager.

Aki Roberge (NASA/Goddard), who led the FUSE team, suggests that this
disk might represent another kind of planetary system. Rocky planets
in such a system would be distinctly different from Earth, and not
just because the crust would be made of graphite (i.e., pencil lead)
and studded with diamonds.

"Imagine a planet where water and oxygen are extremely scarce but
compounds like methane, propane, butane, tar, and soot are all
available in abundance," says Kuchner. "Life would be very strange on
a carbon world."

But carbon planets aren't the only possibility for Beta Pictoris.
Roberge's team speculates that, alternatively, the Beta Pictoris disk
might represent a carbon-rich phase that all planetary systems
undergo - including ours. "Beta Pictoris could be like a time
machine, offering us a glimpse of our solar system in its infancy,"
says Roberge.

If so, Roberge says she would expect to find other debris disks that
are just as carbon-rich. Her team has only studied Beta Pictoris with
FUSE so far; however, astronomers know of many more young disks that
can be studied.

But if our solar system was just as carbon-rich in its youth, where
did all the carbon come from - and where did it go? Conel Alexander,
a cosmochemist at the Carnegie Institution of Washington, thinks
asteroids and comets might be to blame. A debris disk is a
particularly violent place, where asteroids and comets routinely
collide. The collisions literally knock the carbon-rich gas out of
them, leaving excess carbon in a system with otherwise silicate
planets. Strong stellar winds might have then swept away the excess
carbon over millions of years.

Astronomers find evidence for this scenario in primordial dust
particles in our solar system. Some of these dust grains retain their
ancient carbon, suggesting that our system once had much more carbon.

"But, nevertheless, these dust particles are not carbon-rich enough
to explain the composition of the gases that we see in Beta
Pictoris," says Alexander. "We need to consider a more exotic
explanation."

The thick disk of gas and dust that surrounds the star Beta Pictoris
is strangely rich in carbon. The young star is blocked out in this
false-color infrared image, showing the warm glow from dust. The
image was taken by the 3.6-meter telescope at the Grenoble
Observatory. Courtesy Jean-Luc Beuzit / GO / European Southern
Observatory.

Roberge and her team, who published their results in the June 8th
Nature, suspect that new instruments will be needed to further
explore the carbon-rich disk around Beta Pictoris, and to hunt for
more. They speculate that the Cosmic Origins Spectrograph, which may
or may not be added to the Hubble Space Telescope, or the Atacama
Large Millimeter Array, to be completed in Chile in 2012, will be
sensitive enough to study the carbon-rich gas in detail.

"Maybe Beta Pictoris is a glimpse of our own solar system," says
Kuchner. "Or maybe it's telling us about the starling variety of
other kinds of planetary systems that might be out there."

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Star's Dusty Disc Could Create Exotic Worlds (NSS)

By Maggie McKee

New Scientist
,
June 8, 2006

Observers on Earth get an edge-on view of the disc around Beta
Pictoris, whose starlight has been blocked in this false-colour
infrared image (Image: J..-L. Beuzit et al./Grenoble Obs/ESO)

Twice as much carbon gas as expected lies in a dusty disc around the
star Beta Pictoris, new observations reveal.

The find suggests the disc is either experiencing a carbon-rich stage
that could eventually evolve into a planetary system like our own -
or that it could breed exotic worlds with diamond mountains and
methane skies.

Carbon has previously been detected around the star, which is about
twice as massive as the Sun and lies 60 light years away. But those
measurements were based on the relatively faint light that is emitted
by carbon gas in the disc.

Now researchers have used NASA's Far Ultraviolet Spectroscopic
Explorer (FUSE) to make the most accurate measurements yet of gas in
a dusty disc. The disc lies "edge-on" as seen from Earth, so FUSE
measured how much light from the star was absorbed after it passed
through the disc.

"We measured gas in a radial cut, like a spoke," says team leader Aki
Roberge of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland, US. "We
can get quite sensitive observations because the star is pretty
bright." Carbon-rich phase

The researchers found that the disc contains nine times as much
carbon as oxygen - twice the ratio found in Beta Pictoris itself or
in the Sun. That suggests two different possibilities for what could
be taking place in the disc.