Pages

Tuesday, November 4, 2014

Artist’s Impression of Bright Exozodiacal Light


This artist’s view from an imagined planet around a nearby star shows the brilliant glow of exozodiacal light extending up into the sky and swamping the Milky Way. This light is starlight reflected from hot dust created as the result of collisions between asteroids, and the evaporation of comets. The presence of such thick dust clouds in the inner regions around some stars may pose an obstacle to the direct imaging of Earth-like planets in the future.

Illustration credit: ESO/L. Calçada

Note: For more information, see VLTI Detects Exozodiacal Light.

No comments: