• DOI:10.1088/0004-637X/701/2/2019
• Corpus ID: 56108044

Abundant Circumstellar Silica Dust and SiO Gas Created by a Giant Hypervelocity Collision in the ~12 Myr HD172555 System

@article{Lisse2009AbundantCS,
  title={Abundant Circumstellar Silica Dust and SiO Gas Created by a Giant Hypervelocity Collision in the ~12 Myr HD172555 System},
  author={Carey M. Lisse and C. Chen and Mark C. Wyatt and Andreas Morlok and Inseok Song and Geoffrey C. Bryden and Patrick D. Sheehan},
  journal={arXiv: Solar and Stellar Astrophysics},
  year={2009}
}

• C. Lisse, C. Chen, +4 authors P. Sheehan
• Published 14 June 2009
• Physics, Geology
• arXiv: Solar and Stellar Astrophysics

The fine dust detected by IR emission around the nearby Beta Pic analogue star HD172555 is very peculiar. The dust mineralogy is composed primarily of highly refractory, non-equilibrium materials, with approximately three-quarters of the Si atoms in silica (SiO2) species. Tektite and obsidian lab thermal emission spectra (non-equilibrium glassy silicas found in impact and magmatic systems) are required to fit the data. The best-fit model size distribution for the observed fine dust is dn/da = a-3.95 +/- 0.10. This steep a size distribution, with abundant micron-sized particles, argues for a fresh source of material within the last 0.1 Myr. The location of the dust with respect to the star is at 5.8 +/- 0.6 AU (equivalent to 1.9 +/- 0.2 AU from the Sun), within the terrestrial planet formation region but at the outer edge of any possible terrestrial habitability zone. The mass of fine dust is 4 x 10^19 - 2 x 10^20 kg, equivalent to a 150 - 200 km radius asteroid. Significant emission features centered at 4 and 8 um due to fluorescing SiO gas are also found. Roughly 10^22 kg of SiO gas, formed by vaporizing silicate rock, is also present in the system, and a separate population of very large, cool grains, massing 10^21 - 10^22 kg and equivalent to the largest sized asteroid currently found in the Solar System's main asteroid belt, dominates the solid circumstellar material by mass. The makeup of the observed dust and gas, and the noted lack of a dense circumstellar gas disk, strong primary x-ray activity, or an extended disk of Beta-meteroids argues that the source of the observed circumstellar materials is a giant hypervelocity (> 10 km sec^-1) impact between large rocky planetesimals, similar to the ones which formed the Moon and which stripped the surface crustal material off of Mercury's surface.