Star Vega’s Smooth Disk
Video Player
Video Versions
Produced by the Space Telescope Science Institute’s Office of Public Outreach in collaboration with NASA’s Universe of Learning partners: Caltech/IPAC, Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian, and NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
Video imagery:
- Asterism of the "Summer Triangle" including Vega: NASA, ESA, A.Fujii
- Vega disk, Hubble Space Telescope: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI
- Vega disk, James Webb Space Telescope: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI
Music from Music for Non-Profits
(DESCRIPTION)
A series of photos of planets, galaxies, and nebulas. Text: NEWS FROM THE UNIVERSE.
(SPEECH)
[COSMIC MUSIC]
(DESCRIPTION)
A vast star field. Text: November 11, 2024. Star Vega's Smooth Disk.
The camera zooms in on a particularly bright and large star. Text: Vega is one of the brightest stars in the northern sky.
NASA's Hubble and James Webb space telescopes recently studied the disk of material around the star by blocking the bright glow of Vega with a coronagraph instrument.
The reading from the instrument shows a black inner circle surrounded by a white ring. Black and white and blue rays extend from the center. The blue rays extend the furthest, which makes a blue ring around the entire thing. Text: Hubble shows the outer halo of the 100 billion-mile-wide disk of cosmic dust.
An infrared version shows a dark inner circle, surrounded by a peach circle with a large orange border in different shades of orange. Text: In infrared light, Webb sees the dusty disk closer to the star. Like Hubble's view, this region also appears surprisingly smooth, with no evidence of orbiting planets.
While scientists are surprised not to see evidence of planets, the smooth, layered structure provides important information about how different circumstellar disks can be.
A closer view of the image.
This news was brought to you in part by the SPACE TELESCOPE SCIENCE INSTITUTE IN BALTIMORE, MARYLAND.
(SPEECH)