Posted on Feb 13, 2025
APOD: 2025 February 13 - Reflections on VdB 31
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Good morning, Rallypoint, and welcome to this edition of Astronomy Picture of the Day (APOD) for February 13, 2025.
We leave Asteroid Bennu and return to the constellation Auriga for a look at the star AB Aurigae and blue reflection nebula van der Berg (VdB) 31. One of the reasons scientists are interested in this area of the sky is because it is relatively close: 470 light years away. But a larger reason is likely the evidence they see of a flattened dust cloud (that's part of the dark clouds of Barnard 26, 27 and 28 that are shown here) and evidence of potential circumplanetary disks (CPD).
The Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) telescope is located high in the Chilean Andes Mountains, and is designed to study light from some of the coldest objects in the Universe. This light has wavelengths of around a millimeter, between infrared light and radio waves, and is therefore known as millimeter and submillimeter radiation. The patterns being formed by reflected and diffracted light from both the nebula and surrounding clouds suggest that one or more planets are taking shape. These findings were submitted in December 2024 for review by the astrophysics community.
I'll post a link in separate comments to the 2024 paper and an APOD from 2014 that explain more fully what these scientists think they are looking at.
We leave Asteroid Bennu and return to the constellation Auriga for a look at the star AB Aurigae and blue reflection nebula van der Berg (VdB) 31. One of the reasons scientists are interested in this area of the sky is because it is relatively close: 470 light years away. But a larger reason is likely the evidence they see of a flattened dust cloud (that's part of the dark clouds of Barnard 26, 27 and 28 that are shown here) and evidence of potential circumplanetary disks (CPD).
The Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) telescope is located high in the Chilean Andes Mountains, and is designed to study light from some of the coldest objects in the Universe. This light has wavelengths of around a millimeter, between infrared light and radio waves, and is therefore known as millimeter and submillimeter radiation. The patterns being formed by reflected and diffracted light from both the nebula and surrounding clouds suggest that one or more planets are taking shape. These findings were submitted in December 2024 for review by the astrophysics community.
I'll post a link in separate comments to the 2024 paper and an APOD from 2014 that explain more fully what these scientists think they are looking at.
APOD: 2025 February 13 - Reflections on VdB 31
Posted from apod.nasa.gov
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Edited 10 mo ago
Posted 10 mo ago
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I'll await the findings. Maybe some day we can visit the new neighborhood currently under construction there.
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A1C Medrick "Rick" DeVaney
And You May Very Well Be Correct,
Rumor Has It, "There IS Some MAJOR Construction Going On"
And It's Becoming Commonly Known Fact From Fiction ~
~ "We Are NOT Alone And We've NEVER Been Alone"~
Rumor Has It, "There IS Some MAJOR Construction Going On"
And It's Becoming Commonly Known Fact From Fiction ~
~ "We Are NOT Alone And We've NEVER Been Alone"~
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Don't Google about this! It takes about four PhDs to understand what you find! LOL
Conclusions. The wide gap, the warped disk, and the asymmetric dust ring suggest that there is an undetected companion with a mass of 0.03 M⊙ at a radius of 45 AU. The different spirals would, however, require multiple perturbing bodies. While viable from an energetic point of view, this mechanism cannot explain the apparent counter-rotation of the gas in the spirals. Although an hypothetical fly-by cannot be ruled out, the most likely explanation of the AB Aurigae system may be inhomogeneous accretion well above or below the main disk plane from the remnant envelope, which can explain both the rotation and large-scale motions detected with the 30-m image.
Conclusions. The wide gap, the warped disk, and the asymmetric dust ring suggest that there is an undetected companion with a mass of 0.03 M⊙ at a radius of 45 AU. The different spirals would, however, require multiple perturbing bodies. While viable from an energetic point of view, this mechanism cannot explain the apparent counter-rotation of the gas in the spirals. Although an hypothetical fly-by cannot be ruled out, the most likely explanation of the AB Aurigae system may be inhomogeneous accretion well above or below the main disk plane from the remnant envelope, which can explain both the rotation and large-scale motions detected with the 30-m image.
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A1C Medrick "Rick" DeVaney
EXACTLY; Every Time I See These Photographs And Read The Articles, I Find Myself Asking "Wouldn't It Be Great If I Actually Understood What I'm Reading"?
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A1C Medrick "Rick" DeVaney
SPC (Join to see) -
That Works Too. ~ And If You're In Doubt, You Should Have Read My Resume
Which I Presented To FMC For A Position In Their Purchasing Department As An Industrial Purchasing Agent ~ They Required A College Grad And Sun-of-A -Gun, I Just Happened
To Have That, But I Had To Apologized For My Grades, As I Only Carried 3.6 GPA
Talk About BULL SH*T ~ Even My BS Had A PhD~ Piled higher and Deeper.
That Works Too. ~ And If You're In Doubt, You Should Have Read My Resume
Which I Presented To FMC For A Position In Their Purchasing Department As An Industrial Purchasing Agent ~ They Required A College Grad And Sun-of-A -Gun, I Just Happened
To Have That, But I Had To Apologized For My Grades, As I Only Carried 3.6 GPA
Talk About BULL SH*T ~ Even My BS Had A PhD~ Piled higher and Deeper.
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