| Description |
Follow-up Herschel observations have recently confirmed the presenceof a resolved debris disk around GJ 581, a nearby M star with 4 low-mass(super-Earth) planets. Debris disks around M stars are exceedingly rare(~1% detection rate in the DEBRIS survey), raising the question of whetherthe debris might somehow be directly related to the neighboring planets. In order to assess whether low-mass planets are strongly correlatedwith dusty debris or whether this is just a chance coincidence, we proposeto dramatically increase the number of planet-bearing M stars observedby Herschel, from the current 3 up to a total of 20 stars. The proposedPACS 100/160 um images of 17 planet-bearing M stars will clarifywhether this class of system preferentially has orbiting debris.Should any new disks be detected, the close proximity of the targetM stars (~10 pc) makes them favorable candidates for resolved imaging,which may help to explain the unusual asymmetry in GJ 581ssimilarly resolved disk. |
| Keywords |
Herschel Space Observatory data, ESA Herschel mission dataset, far-infrared astronomy observations, submillimeter astronomy data, infrared space telescope observations, PACS photometer data, PACS spectrometer data, SPIRE photometer data, SPIRE Fourier transform spectrometer data, HIFI heterodyne spectroscopy data, far-infrared spectroscopy dataset, submillimeter spectral line observations, cold universe observations dataset, star formation infrared data, molecular cloud far-infrared observations, interstellar medium spectroscopy data, protoplanetary disk infrared observations, galaxy evolution far-infrared data, dust emission submillimeter observations, cosmic infrared background measurements, extragalactic infrared survey data, calibrated level 2 data products, FITS files astronomy, spectral cubes far-infrared, flux-calibrated maps, continuum photometry data, spectral energy distribution measurements, ESA Herschel Science Archive data |
