Herschel detects typical crystals of the comets in a near planetary system

»Beta Pictori

 

The disc of powder surrounding the young star Beta Pictori contains a type of pristine material. It is present in our Solar System. A spatial telescope has discovered it of infrared distantly of the ESA, Herschel. Beta Pictoria is a young star - twelve million years old- located 63 light years from Earth. Around it there is a giant gaseous planet and a disc of residual material that with the time might turn into a ring of frozen bodies of the style of Kuiper's belt.

Herschel has allowed for the first time to determine the composition of the powder that surrounds the system of Beta Pictori. The presence of the mineral olivine has turned out to be specially interesting, that crystallizes on the discs protoplanetary surround to the newborn stars  and that eventually happens to be an ingredient asteroids, comets and planets.