Astronomers detected evidence that the planet’s atmosphere could be lost due to a giant impact.
REPUBLIKA.CO.ID, MASSACHUSETS — Astronomers have detected for the first time evidence that a planet has an atmosphere that is slowly disappearing due to a giant impact. Scientists think that nascent planetary systems, known as protoplanets, slam together and coalesce to form planets that are getting bigger and bigger.
“Our own solar system shows a lot of evidence of a giant impact,” said study lead author Tajana Schneiderman, an astronomer at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Space, Thursday (21/10).
Now Schneiderman and his colleagues have found signs of the destruction of the giant planet some 95 light-years from Earth. The cosmic collision surrounding the 23 million year old star HD 172555, in the constellation Pavo, the peacock, may have removed some of the world’s atmosphere.
“We have detected a stripped atmosphere for the first time,” said Schneiderman.
The star HD 172555 previously caught the attention of scientists because of the unusual nature of the dust around it. Previous research found that this stardust has much finer grains than astronomers would expect for the disk of debris surrounding the star.
The dust is also laden with large amounts of unusual minerals, such as obsidian and black glass tektites, which require intense heat to form. Previous research suggested one possible explanation for such dust was two worlds colliding, a collision involving speeds of more than 22,000 mph (36 thousand kph).
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