Galactic mystery: Dust belt around star vanishes

In a cosmic case of “now-you-see-it, now-you-don’t” , a brilliant disk of dust around a Sun-like star has suddenly vanished, and the scientists who observed the disappearance aren’t sure about what happened. Typically, the kind of dusty haloes that circle stars have the makings of rocky planets like Earth, according to Ben Zuckerman, one of a team of researchers who reported the finding on Wednesday in the journal Nature. [caption id=“attachment_369438” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  The star’s dust belt has disagreed in under three years: Reuters[/caption] Composed of warm dusty material, these disks can be seen by telescopes looking for infrared light. This one was first seen in 1983 by Nasa’s Infrared Astronomical Satellite around the young star TYC 8241 2652. It glowed for a quarter-century before disappearing in a matter of two and a half years. An image taken on 1 May by the Gemini observatory at La Serena, Chile, confirmed that the disk was gone. Astronomers are accustomed to watching events that have unfolded over millions or billions of years, so seeing a bright ring depart from view in less than three years was an eye-blink in the astronomical context, Zuckerman said by telephone from the University of California. Reuters