New NASA Supercomputer Model Shows Planet Making Waves in Nearby Debris Disk (IMAGE)

NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center

New NASA Supercomputer Model Shows Planet Making Waves in Nearby Debris Disk

Caption

These images compare a view of Beta Pictoris in scattered light as seen by the Hubble Space Telescope (top) with a similar view constructed from data in the SMACK simulation (red overlay, bottom). The X pattern in the Hubble image forms as a result of a faint secondary dust disk inclined to the main debris disk. Previous simulations were unable to reproduce this feature, but the SMACK model replicates the overall pattern because it captures the three-dimensional distribution of the collisions responsible for making the dust.

Credit

Courtesy of: Top, NASA/ESA and D. Golimowski (Johns Hopkins Univ.); bottom, NASA Goddard/E. Nesvold and M. Kuchner

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