Dusting for Clues: Gemini Discovers Evidence for Colliding Bodies in Planet Forming Disk

Residual emission in the southwest wing of the Beta Pictoris debris disk as detected by T-ReCS on Gemini South. These data are centered on the southwest region of the disk where the hypothetical collision is thought to have occurred. The data may also reveal the flow of dust as it is blown out of the system by the star’s radiation. The detection of emission like this indicates that many small dust grains still remain in the clump and the collision likely occurred sometime in the last one hundred years. All scales are in Astronomical Units (AU) from the central star. For comparison, our solar system is ~40 AU in radius.