Nancy A. Levenson
Science Highlights
Figure 1.
This GPI image of HD
115600 in the H band
(around 1.6 μm) clearly
shows the disk that
resembles the Kuiper belt
of our own Solar System.
The coronagraph blocks
the light of the central
star (at the position of
the cross). The diamond
marks the disk’s center.
Recent scientific results from Gemini’s users include a
circumstellar disk that resembles our Sun’s Kuiper belt,
an enigmatic in situ formation of massive stars near the
inhospitable center of our Galaxy, and evidence for two
formation scenarios of Type Ia supernovae.
A Solar System Analogue, in Formation
Observations using the Gemini Planet Imager (GPI)
reveal an analogue of our own Solar System at an
early stage of evolution. The debris disk, which
resembles the Sun’s “Kuiper belt,” belongs to the
young star HD 115600 — a star in the right environment (a massive OB association) to represent
the site of the Sun’s formation, with similar mass
(1.4 to 1.5 MSun). Thayne Currie (National Astronomical Observatory of Japan) and collaborators have
discovered this extrasolar debris disk in direct imaging, and they use the images and spectral information from GPI to determine its properties and
possible unseen planets.
The eccentric structure of the emitting disk is consistent with the system being shaped by planets like
those in our Solar System, at similar distances from
the parent star. Many previously discovered systems have required unusual planets — super-sized
Jupiters far from the disk’s center — to create the
observed structures. GPI’s excellent resolution and
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GeminiFocus
July 2015