D E B R I S   D I S K S   III

Epsilon Eridani

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Comparative diagram of the debris disk architectures of the Solar System and Epsilon Eridani. Courtesy NASA/JPL-Caltech.

The young nearby star Epsilon Eridani, located at a distance of 3.2 parsecs (10.5 light years), harbors extensive debris belts resembling scaled-up versions of the Asteroid and Kuiper Belts of the Solar System. The star's inner asteroid belt is comparable in location and extent to the Solar System's main belt, while its outer asteroid belt, at an astrocentric radius of about 20 AU, follows an orbit similar to that of Uranus.

Epsilon Eridani's huge outer disk, labeled "Comet Belt" in this diagram, is far more massive and extensive than our own Kuiper Belt, with an inner edge at about 35 AU, an outer cut-off at about 90 AU, and a "halo" of fine-grained debris extending to 110 AU. By comparison, the main Kuiper Belt extends from 30 AU -- just outside the orbit of Neptune -- to about 50 AU, with additional objects on highly eccentric orbits occupying the so-called Scattered Disk, whose outer edge lies beyond 100 AU (Jewitt et al. 2008).





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1 		AU Microscopii Debris Disk
2 		Espilon Eridani Debris Rings
3 		HD 69830 Debris Belt
4 		Beta Pictoris Debris Disk
5 		Fomalhaut and Vega
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All text is copyright Raymond Harris 2006-2009. Image credits appear in the accompanying captions.