Asteroid Belt Detected Around Sun-Like Star
From Times Staff and Wire Reports
NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope has detected the first asteroid belt encircling a star similar to the sun.
Astronomers using the infrared telescope found a ring of dust circling the star HD69830 that may indicate asteroid collisions within an orbiting belt as much as 25 times bigger than the one circling the sun. The star is about 41 light years away in the constellation Puppis. Astronomers have theorized that the asteroid belt ringing our solar system holds the remnants of dust and debris that served as building material for Earth and the other planets.
