Overview
- The SPHERE team processed observations of 161 nearby young stars and resolved 51 debris disks in scattered light, including four imaged for the first time.
- New detections cited in the study include disks around HD 36968 and BD-20 951 and inner belts in HR 8799 and HD 36546, expanding the gallery of mapped small-body belts.
- The arXiv analysis reports a second transiting giant planet in the HD 114082 system, with a radius of about 1.29 Jupiter radii on an orbit near 1 au.
- Common structures—rings, sharp inner edges, offsets and brightness asymmetries—are interpreted as signatures of gravitational sculpting by giant planets, some already directly detected.
- Population trends indicate more massive stars host more massive, often more extended belts, disks are most visible in scattered light for roughly the first 50 million years, and the gallery prioritizes targets for JWST and the ELT to pursue direct planet imaging.