Description |
Follow-up Herschel observations have recently confirmed the presence of 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 whether the debris might somehow be directly related to the neighboring planets. In order to assess whether low-mass planets are strongly correlated with dusty debris or whether this is just a chance coincidence, we propose to dramatically increase the number of planet-bearing M stars observed by Herschel, from the current 3 up to a total of 20 stars. The proposed PACS 100/160 um images of 17 planet-bearing M stars will clarify whether this class of system preferentially has orbiting debris. Should any new disks be detected, the close proximity of the target M stars (~10 pc) makes them favorable candidates for resolved imaging, which may help to explain the unusual asymmetry in GJ 581s similarly resolved disk. |