Details

Autor(en) / Beteiligte

• Qi, Chunhua
• Öberg, Karin I.
• Wilner, David J.
• D'Alessio, Paola
• Bergin, Edwin
• Andrews, Sean M.
• Blake, Geoffrey A.
• Hogerheijde, Michiel R.
• van Dishoeck, Ewine F.

Titel

Imaging of the CO Snow Line in a Solar Nebula Analog

Ist Teil von

• Science (American Association for the Advancement of Science), 2013-08, Vol.341 (6146), p.630-632

Ort / Verlag

United States: American Association for the Advancement of Science

Erscheinungsjahr

2013

Quelle

American Association for the Advancement of Science

Beschreibungen/Notizen

• Planets form in the disks around young stars. Their formation efficiency and composition are intimately linked to the protoplanetary disk locations of "snow lines" of abundant volatiles. We present chemical imaging of the carbon monoxide (CO) snow line in the disk around TW Hya, an analog of the solar nebula, using high spatial and spectral resolution Atacama Large Millimeter/Submillimeter Array observations of diazenylium (N 2 H + ), a reactive ion present in large abundance only where CO is frozen out. The N 2 H + emission is distributed in a large ring, with an inner radius that matches CO snow line model predictions. The extracted CO snow line radius of ∼30 astronomical units helps to assess models of the formation dynamics of the solar system, when combined with measurements of the bulk composition of planets and comets.