Researchers spotted a dense cloud of poisonous gas formed by a war between icy comets near a neighboring star.
The researchers believe this swarm of comets is either the remnants of a collision between two Mars-sized "icy worlds" or frozen debris trapped by a nearby but undiscovered planet, a NASA news release reported.
The researchers mapped the millimeter-wavelength light from dust and carbon monoxide (CO) molecules surrounding the star Beta Pictoris using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA).
"Although toxic to us, carbon monoxide is one of many gases found in comets and other icy bodies," team member Aki Roberge, an astrophysicist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, said in the news release. "In the rough-and-tumble environment around a young star, these objects frequently collide and generate fragments that release dust, icy grains and stored gases."
Researchers identified a compact clump of gas about eight billion miles from the star. The presence of this gas is interesting because ultraviolet light breaks down CO molecules in about 100 years, which is less time than it takes for the cloud to orbit the star.
"So unless we are observing Beta Pictoris at a very unusual time, then the carbon monoxide we observed must be continuously replenished," Bill Dent, a researcher at the Joint ALMA Office said in the news release.
The team found that in order to keep replenishing the cloud's CO molecules a comet would have to be destroyed about every five minutes; this is what indicated the massive comet swarm.
Jupiter has captured many asteroids in its gravitational grip; researchers believed a large planet could also be responsible for the swarm of feuding comets.
"Detailed dynamical studies are now under way, but at the moment we think this shepherding planet would be around Saturn's mass and positioned near the inner edge of the CO belt," coauthor Mark Wyatt, an astronomer at the University of Cambridge, said in the news release.
Researchers have already imaged a planet with a mass several times greater than Jupiter orbiting unusually close to its host star. The "Shepard" planet would be about 10 times farther out.
"We think the Beta Pictoris comet swarms formed when the hypothetical planet migrated outward, sweeping icy bodies into resonant orbits," Wyatt said.
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