APOD
Astronomy Picture of the Day
Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer.
HR 4796A: A Recipe for Planets
Explanation: Two hundred and twenty light years from Earth, planets are forming. Recent observations of the binary star system HR 4796 have shown that one of the stars is surrounded by a dusty gaseous disk. This disk is of the right size, age, and density for dust pellets to accrete surrounding matter. A hole in the disk's center indicates that increasingly larger condensates are colliding and sticking together, coalescing into moons and planets . Pictured above is a false-color image of the system, with the bright star HR 4796A indicated by a cross. The disk measures about five times the size of our Solar System , and is seen nearly edge-on. HR 4796 is in the southern constellation Centaurus.
| Date | April 22, 1998 |
|---|---|
| Credit | Credit: C. Telesco (U. Florida) et al. (CfA, NOAO), OSCIR, Keck II |
| Authors & editors: | Robert Nemiroff (MTU) & Jerry Bonnell (UMCP) |
| A service of: |
ASD at NASA / GSFC, NASA Science Activation & Michigan Tech. U. |