The James Webb Telescope Discovered a Strange 'Cat Tail' Flowing Out of a Nearby Star

A team of researchers, led by Isabel Rebollido of Spain's Astrobiology Center, has discovered a never-before-seen cat tail-like structure emanating from a young Beta Pictoris solar system. The team used Webb's NIRCam (Near-Infrared Camera) and MIRI (Mid-Infrared Instrument) to observe Beta Pictoris.

Beta Pictoris is larger and brighter than the Sun. Despite its young age of 15-25 million years, it is already well established in the evolutionary sequence. It's only 64 light-years away from Earth, which puts it in our backyard. Because of its close proximity, astronomers have been able to study the most minor details of this young solar system, such as its two gas giant exoplanets and debris disk. Now, astronomers have pointed the powerful James Webb Space Telescope at Beta Pictoris, discovering a new feature, a wispy "cat's tail" of gas extending away from the disk.

The tail does not appear in the NIRCam data, so it is invisible to most instruments. This suggests that the two disks are made from different materials. MIRI is more sensitive to long wavelengths, allowing it to see through dust clouds and detect even small temperature changes. The secondary ring is significantly hotter than the primary disk. This suggests that the secondary disk primarily comprises dark-hued organic matter rather than gas that does not appear in the visual spectrum. They do, however, emit a bright infrared glow.

Astronomers have never seen a structure like this before, so it's impossible to say exactly how it formed. However, the researchers behind this study used computer simulations to develop a hypothesis corresponding to the available evidence. It begins with a cataclysmic event that occurred merely a hundred years ago, such as the collision of two large asteroids or comets. As the debris expands, most of it follows the same orbital path as the colliding objects. However, the solar wind from the star pushes the lightest, "fluffiest" material away from the orbital plane, resulting in the winding tail seen in the image.

"The light from the star pushes the smallest, fluffiest dust particles away from the star faster, while the bigger grains do not move as much, creating a long tendril of dust," study co-author Marshall Perrin, a planetary astronomer at the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, said in a statement.

The team's modeling suggests that the sharp angle on the cat's tail is a visual illusion caused by our perspective and the tail's curved shape. In reality, the material leaves the disk with a gentle five-degree incline. Despite the optical illusion, the team estimates that the cat's tail contains enough dust to cover an area the size of a giant main-belt asteroid, which spans 10 billion miles.

This discovery suggests that Beta Pictoris may be more dynamic than previously thought. Recent dust production events may explain other system features, such as an inclined inner disk's asymmetric extension and a carbon monoxide clump near the cat's tail. The continued presence of this gas concentration despite the star's radiation suggests that the collisional event left a lingering trace.