Discovery of a candidate protoplanetary disk around the embedded source IRc9 in Orion

Astrophysics, abstract
astro-ph/0502172

From: Nathan Smith [view email]

Date: Tue, 8 Feb 2005 22:24:23 GMT   (154kb)

We report the detection of spatially-extended mid-infrared emission around
the luminous embedded star IRc9 in OMC-1, as seen in 8.8, 11.7, and 18.3 micron
images obtained with T-ReCS on Gemini South. The extended emission is
asymmetric, and the morphology is reminiscent of warm dust disks around other
young stars. The putative disk has a radius of roughly 1.5 arcsec (700 AU), and
a likely dust mass of almost 10 Earth masses. The infrared spectral energy
distribution of IRc9 indicates a total luminosity of about 100 Lsun, implying
that it shall become an early A-type star when it reaches the main sequence.
Thus, the candidate disk around IRc9 may be a young analog of the planetary
debris disks around Vega-like stars and the disks of Herbig Ae stars, and may
provide a laboratory in which to study the earliest phases of planet formation.
A disk around IRc9 may also add weight to the hypothesis that an enhanced T
Tauri-like wind from this star has influenced the molecular outflow from the
OMC-1 core.

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