Dirty stars make good solar system hosts
Wednesday, October 7, 2009 - 10:14
in Astronomy & Space
Some stars are lonely behemoths, with no surrounding planets or asteroids, while others sport a skirt of attendant planetary bodies. New research published this week in The Astrophysical Journal Letters explains why the composition of the stars often indicates whether their light shines into deep space, or whether a small fraction shines onto orbiting planets. When a star forms, collapsing from a dense cloud into a luminous ball, it and the disk of dust and gas orbiting it reflect the composition of that original cloud and the elements within it. While some clouds are poor in heavier elements, many have a wealth of these elements. These are the dirty stars that are good solar system hosts...
