To discover proof for comets outside our Solar System, astronomers turned to 2 centers that find specific bands of radio waves: the Submillimeter Array (SMA) and the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA).

Since of the size of the dust and rocks in these belts, this kind of light is especially proficient at finding and imaging these structures.

The stars in the research study varied in ages from extremely young to middle-aged like our Sun.

“A joint program in between SMA and ALMA called REASONS marks a substantial turning point in the research study of exocometary belts since its images and subsequent analysis expose where the pebbles and the exocomets lie,” stated Trinity College Dublin astronomer Luca Matrà and associates.

“In these areas, it is so cold (minus 250 to minus 150 degrees Celsius) that the majority of substances consisting of water are frozen as ice on these exocomets.”

“Exocomets are stones of rock and ice, a minimum of a kilometer in size, which smash together within these belts to produce the pebbles that we observe here with the ALMA and SMA varieties of telescopes,” Dr. Matrà stated.

“Exocometary belts are discovered in a minimum of 20% of planetary systems, including our own Solar System.”

“The Kuiper Belt is an example of a cometary belt in our own Solar System.”

“Located far beyond the orbit of Pluto, some researchers believe the Kuiper Belt is the source of water for the inner Solar System where Earth lies, provided through comets billions of years back.”

The brand-new images reveal an impressive variety of structure in the belts. Some are narrow rings, while others are larger and might be classified more as disks than belts.

Some of the 74 exocomet systems have numerous rings or disks and some of those are eccentric, indicating not a circular orbit however more like an oval.

This offers proof that yet undetected worlds or maybe moons exist and their gravity impacts the circulation of pebbles in these systems.

“Arrays like the ALMA and SMA utilized in this work are amazing tools that are continuing to provide us unbelievable brand-new insights into deep space and its operations,” stated Dr. David Wilner, an astrophysicist at the Harvard & & Smithsonian’s Center for Astrophysics.

“The REASONS study needed a big neighborhood effort and has an amazing tradition worth, with numerous possible paths for future examination.”

“The REASONS dataset of belt and planetary system homes will allow research studies of the birth and advancement of these belts, in addition to follow-up observations throughout the wavelength variety, from the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope to the next generation of Extremely Large Telescopes and upcoming ALMA’s strategies to zoom even further into the information of these belts.”

A paper explaining the outcomes was released in the journal Astronomy & & Astrophysics

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L. Matrà et al2025. Solved ALMA and SMA Observations of Nearby Stars (REASONS): A population of 74 solved planetesimal belts at millimetre wavelengths. A&A 693, A151; doi: 10.1051/ 0004-6361/2024 51397