D E B R I S   D I S K S   I


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Artist's impression of a debris belt. Courtesy T. Pyle/SSC/NASA/JPL-Caltech

When the protoplanetary disks that surround young stars disperse, they often leave behind a field of debris consisting of rocky or icy objects. These can range in size from pebbles to planetoids. Collisions between them create dust that can be detected from astronomical distances. Our own Solar System has two such debris fields: the Asteroid Belt and the Kuiper Belt.

Infrared observations of many nearby stars have revealed excesses indicating analogous structures in orbit around them. Their composition is typically described as amorphous and/or crystalline silicate and carbonaceous grains, similar to the material in our own debris belts. The Web pages linked below contain further information about nearby debris disk systems.





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1 		AU Microscopii Debris Disk
2 		HD 69830 Debris Belt
3 		Beta Pictoris Debris Disk
4 		Fomalhaut and Vega
5 		Next