Dusty discs around stars young and old DR EMILY BALDWIN Posted:
15 April Details of compact discs of rocky and dusty material
have been detected around two young stars at similar distances
as the Earth resides from our Sun, and around two ageing stars,
providing information on discs at various stages of their
evolution. Dr Rachel Smith of Keele University presented results
obtained using the MIDI interferometer at ESO’s Very Large
Telescope in Chile, at this week’s National Astronomy Meeting in
Glasgow. MIDI combines the infrared light from the four 8-metre
VLT telescopes, creating the performance capabilities equivalent
to a 100 metre diameter telescope. The first star, HD69830, is a
two billion year old orange star located 41 light years away
towards the constellation Puppis and hosts three Neptune-mass
planets. The second star, eta Corvi, is a 1.3 billion year old
F2V class star. HD69830’s disc lies between 7.5 and 360 million
kilometres from the host star and would be a spectacular sight
for anyone standi