Scientists are stunned by a star called Kappa Tucanae A, seventy light-years from Earth, phys.org reported. This star harbours dust which is so hot that it glows at more than 1,000 degrees Fahrenheit. It also defies basic understanding of space by persisting near its host star, a region where it should have been vaporised or blown away by intense heat and radiation pressure.
But in the latest development, astronomers at the University of Arizona's Steward Observatory discovered a companion star orbiting Kappa Tucanae A, offering a new perspective on the dust's persistence. They published their findings in the Astronomical Journal.
This stellar companion, observed by the European Southern Observatory's MATISSE instrument, follows an extremely elliptical path, swinging close to the primary star and interacting with the dust-rich inner region.
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The study led by Thomas Stuber, who is a postdoctoral research associate at the U of A's Steward Observatory, proposed several explanations for the dust's survival, including magnetic fields.
"If we see dust in such large amounts, it needs to be replaced rapidly, or there needs to be some sort of mechanism that extends the lifetime of the dust," Stuber said.
"There's basically no way that this companion is not somehow connected to that dust production," notes Steward Observatory Associate Astronomer Steve Ertel, a co-author on the paper. "It has to be dynamically interacting with the dust."
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Researchers stated that stellar magnetic fields might trap charged dust particles, extending their lifetime.
They also suggested that continuous resupply from cometary material could sustain the dust. Also, additional physical processes may contribute to the dust's persistence.
The discovery of Kappa Tucanae A's companion star provides a unique "laboratory" for studying hot exozodiacal dust, which complicates the search for Earth-like exoplanets.
