Beta Pictoris Solar System Could Someday Support Life, Scientists Say

Beta Pictoris, a one-planet solar system about 63 light years from Earth, is an area that sees icy comets collide at a rate of one every five minutes, according to iO9. Scientists have theorized that the solar system could someday support life due to the comets' crashes, which can provide planet Beta Pictoris b with water, Forbes reported.

The clump of dusty debris that surrounds the Beta Pictoris star contains carbon monoxide, which hint that the icy space objects are continually colliding in the area.

"Molecules of CO can survive around a star for only a brief time, about 100 years, before being destroyed by UV radiation," said Bill Dent, a researcher at the Joint ALMA Office and lead author of a study of ALMA's observations. "So unless we are observing Beta Pictoris at a very unusual time, then the carbon monoxide we observed must be continuously replenished."

Researchers observed the unusually active system through the European Southern Observatory's (ESO) Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array telescope (ALMA), Forbes reported.

CO and other gases are trapped inside comets and then released into the atmosphere when the space objects run into each other. Because an unusual amount of CO is clumping together at a certain point, scientists believe a second planet not visible from Earth may be orbiting Beta Pictoris.

"This clump is an important clue to what's going on in the outer reaches of this young planetary system," said Mark Wyatt, an astronomer at the University of Cambridge and coauthor of the published findings, as quoted by Forbes.

Researchers have come up with a couple of theories as to how the high amount of CO came to the solar system. One distant possibility is that two icy planets, each about the size of Mars, crashed into each other long ago.

"To get the amount of CO we observed--which is equal to about one-sixth the mass of Earth's oceans--the rate of collisions would be truly startling, with the complete destruction of a large comet once every five minutes," said Aki Roberge, an astronomer at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Centre and coauthor. "To get this number of collisions, this would have to be a very tight, massive swarm."