Astronomers discover surprisingly lopsided disk around a nearby star using groundbreaking telescope upgrade
Astronomers have discovered a surprisingly lopsided disk surrounding the mysterious nearby star Beta Canis Minoris, thanks to a brand new “photon lantern” device that could significantly improve the observing power of ground-based telescopes.
Beta Canis Minoris, also known as Gomeisa, is approximately 3.5 times more massive than the sun and is located approximately 162 light years from Earth in the constellation Canis Minor, where it is found visible to the naked eye at night. Despite its relative proximity to Earth, researchers still know little about it. For example, previous research suggested that it was a close binary system consisting of two smaller stars orbiting each other in extreme proximity, but this has not yet been confirmed.
“We did not expect to detect such an asymmetry, and it will be the task of astrophysicists modeling these systems to explain its presence,” said the study’s lead author. Yoo Jung Kimdoctoral student at the University of California, Los Angeles, said in a statement.
But what really excites the study team is that their new device has achieved such a level of detail in its very first use. They believe the small device captured “the most precise measurement ever made of the disk surrounding a star” acquired by a single ground-based telescope.
The photon lantern can be attached to almost any observatory grade optical telescope. It works by taking light from an object and splitting it into individual strands — “like separating a chord into individual musical notes,” the researchers wrote in the release. Each strand is then separated by wavelength, like the colors of a rainbow, before all the individual pieces of information are recombined using specialist computer software.
This process allows astronomers to partially circumvent a major limitation in visual astronomy, known as the “diffraction limit,” caused by subtle fluctuations that occur across multiple wavelengths of light as it passes through Earth’s atmosphere. With the new device, researchers can see “subtle details that would otherwise be lost,” Kim said.
In this case, the lantern allowed the team to more precisely measure the subtle color variations in the star’s gaseous disk, caused by the Doppler effect – the change in frequency of a wave due to the relative motion of its source and the observer. Half of the disc is tinted blue because it is spinning towards us, while the other half has a redder tint because it is moving away from us. However, the color variation on each side of the star did not match perfectly, meaning the gas was not spinning into a perfect disk.
Normally, this type of information is only available for space assets, such as James Webb Space Telescope – which do not have to deal with atmospheric disturbances, nor by stacking several images from different telescopes on the ground. However, the photonic lantern can boost the power of single ground-based telescopes so that they can obtain comparable results, the researchers said.
“In astronomy, the sharpest image details are usually obtained by linking telescopes together,” Kim said. “But we did it with just one telescope.”
The team will now study other objects with their new device and attach it to other telescopes to see if the same level of observing power can be replicated.
“We’re just getting started,” study co-author Nemanja Jovanovicastronomer and photonics expert at Caltech, said in the release. “The possibilities are really exciting.”
