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Discovery of a massive equatorial torus in the η Carinae stellar system

de Graauw, Th.; Waters, L. B. F. M.; Mutschke, H. +10 more

The enigmatic object η Carinae is believed to represent an important, but short-lived, unstable phase in the life of the most massive stars, occurring shortly before they explode as supernovae or collapse directly to black holes. The putative binary system believed to constitute η Carinae survived an outburst in the previous century that lasted 20…

Disappearance of stellar debris disks around main-sequence stars after 400 million years

Kessler, M. F.; Siebenmorgen, R.; Metcalfe, L. +7 more

Almost 5 billion years ago, the Sun formed in a local contraction of a cloud of molecular gas. A rotating disk of gas and dust is believed to have fed material onto the proto-Sun for the first few million years of its life, and to have formed the planets, comets and other Solar System objects. Similar disks, but with less mass, have been observed …