NASA's Hubble Telescope Spots Falling Exocomets into HD 172555
NASA’s space telescope Hubble found raining comets toward the white star HD 172555. This star is almost 23 million years old and residing almost 95 light years away from earth. This is also identified in different names like HR 7012, IRAS 18405-6455, HIP 92024, TYC 9077-2487-1 etc. However, it is actually a group of the star from the same stellar nursery named, Beta Pictoris. Now scientists have discovered exocomets are rushing towards the stellar groups.
Researchers found importance for this study because it is the closest stellar nursery of the solar system. According to Sci-News, Beta Pictoris has both types of objects like 37.5% of massive stars of directly imaged exoplanets and infalling star-grazing bodies.
Study leader from NASA’s Goddard Spaceflight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland Dr. Carol Grady said in a statement, “Seeing these sun-grazing comets in our solar system and in three extrasolar systems means that this activity may be common in young star systems”. Back in 2013, Astrophysicist from Paris Institute of Astrophysics and co-authors, Dr. Flavien Kiefer discovered the same thing that exocomets are approaching towards HD 172555. using the High Accuracy Radial Velocity Planet Searcher(HARPS) scientists detected the calcium footprint, which is the most common thing in Comets.
NASA report says that Grady and her colleagues started analyzing in 2015. Using the Cosmic Origins Spectrograph (COS) and Hubble’s Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph (STIS) Hubble identified the sign of various elements. Hubble made two observation in a six days of a gap.
Silicon and carbon gasses were detected moving towards the face of HD 172555 at a speed of 360,000 miles per hour. Although, those speedy gasses are nothing but the broken part of exocomets facing towards the star. Even scientists are also believing that waters on the earth are the gift of comets.Grady and co-authors reported their findings Jan. 6, 2017 at the 229th Meeting of the American Astronomical Society in Grapevine, Texas.
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