B-Pictoris Debris Disk Rich in Carbon Gas

June 13, 2006 / Posted by: Shige Abe

Using NASA’s FUSE spacecraft, scientists from NAI’s Carnegie Institution of Washington Team have discovered abundant amounts of carbon gas in a dusty disk surrounding the young star Beta Pictoris. While planets may have already formed, the prevalence of carbon gas in the disk indicates that the planets could be carbon-rich worlds of graphite and methane, potentially resembling the early conditions of our own Solar System. The authors suggest 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 are responsible for the observation. Their work is published in this week’s Nature.

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