Dust ring around star offers new clues into planet formation

esahubble_opo9903c January 8th, 1999

Credit: Brad Smith (University of Hawaii), Glenn Schneider (University of Arizona), and NASA/ESA

A NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope false-color near infrared image of a novel type of structure seen in space - a dust ring around a star. Superficially resembling Saturn's rings -- but on a vastly larger scale -- the 'hula-hoop' around the star called HR 4796A offers new clues into the possible presence of young planets.

Provider: Hubble Space Telescope | ESA

Image Source: https://www.spacetelescope.org/images/opo9903c/

Curator: ESA/Hubble, Garching bei München, Germany

Image Use Policy: Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License

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Image Details

Image Type: Observation
Object Name: HR 4796A
Subject - Milky Way: Star > Grouping > Binary; Star > Circumstellar Material > Planetary System; Star > Circumstellar Material > Disk

Color Mapping

	Telescope	Spectral Band	Wavelength
	Hubble (NICMOS)	Infrared (Near-IR)	1.1 µm

ID: opo9903c
Subject Category: B.3.6.1 B.3.7.1 B.3.7.2
Subject Name: HR 4796A
Credits: Brad Smith (University of Hawaii), Glenn Schneider (University of Arizona), and NASA/ESA

Release Date: 1999-01-08T06:00:00
Lightyears
Redshift
Reference Url: https://www.spacetelescope.org/images/opo9903c/

Type: Observation
Image Quality
Distance Notes: Distance in light years from: http://iopscience.iop.org/1538-3881/137/1/53/fulltext

Facility: Hubble Space Telescope
Instrument: NICMOS
Color Assignment: Grayscale

Band: Infrared
Bandpass: Near-IR
Central Wavelength: 1100

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Reference Value
Reference Dimension: 424.0, 424.0

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Creator (Curator): ESA/Hubble
URL: http://www.spacetelescope.org/
Name
Email

Telephone
Address: Karl-Schwarzschild-Strasse 2
City: Garching bei München
State/Province

Postal Code: D-85748
Country: Germany
Rights: Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License

Publisher: ESA/Hubble
Publisher ID: esahubble
Resource ID: opo9903c

Resource URL: http://www.spacetelescope.org/static/archives/images/original/opo9903c.tif
Related Resources

Metadata Date: 2003-12-09T17:52:38+01:00
Metadata Version: 1.1

Detailed color mapping information coming soon...

There is no distance meta data in this image.