Scientists have been amazed by the discovery of a red dwarf star surrounded by the oldest circumstellar disk.
The Astrophysical Journal Letters described a new celestial body called AWI0005x3s which surrounded by the oldest planet-forming disk.
Steven Silverberg of University of Oklahoma said that "most disks of this kind fade away in less than 30 million years." However, the star that was spotted was a "particular red dwarf [that] is a candidate member of the Carina stellar association, which would make it around 45 million years old. It's the oldest red dwarf system with a disk we've seen in one of these associations."
The project called "Disk Detective," which is headed by Dr. Marc Kuchner of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC), aims to discover new circumstellar disks.
Through the project's official website DiskDetective.org, visitors can send information about celestial objects by completing surveys including the Two-Micro All Sky Survey (2MASS) and Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer mission (WISE). Approximately two million celestial bodies have been classified by 30,000 scientists since 2014.
Dr. Kuchner. commended the public for their contributions to finding and describing celestial bodies which help in astronomical advancement.
The Carina association is a group of stars with approximately similar age. A test was used to show that the newly-discovered red dwarf along with its disk is part of this group.
Gagne said that "it is surprising to see a circumstellar disk around a star that may be 45 million years old because we normally expect these disks to dissipate within a few million years."
The team added that more observations are necessary to determine the actual age of the red dwarf star. They added that future information could help in understanding the lifetime of circumstellar disks.