First millimeter-wavelength image of HD 53143 reveals marked eccentricity

While studying HD 53143— a roughly billion-year-old Sun-like star— in millimeter-wavelengths for the first time, scientists discovered that the star's debris disk is highly eccentric. Unlike ring-shaped debris disks, in which the star sits in the center, HD 53143 is located at one foci of an elliptical-shaped disk and is shown as the unresolved dot below and left of the center. Scientists believe a second unresolved dot in the north of this image to be a planet that is perturbing and shaping the debris disk. Credit: ALMA (ESO/NAOJ/NRAO)/M. MacGregor (U. Colorado Boulder); S. Dagnello (NRAO/AUI/NSF)