Hubble Space Telescope STIS Coronagraphy of WISE Debris Disk Candidates
Abstract
We report on an HST imaging program to search for debris disks in scattered light using the STIS coronagraph. The targets are 13 Hipparcos stars selected for robust levels of WISE 22 micron emission in excess of photospheric levels. These sources represent some of the closest and brightest of the large set of new WISE debris disk candidates (Padgett et al. 2013). Many of the sources appear as bare point spread functions with no extended nebulosity; two others are revealed as blends of bright stars with adjacent background star-forming galaxies. Debris disks were directly imaged in 5/13 targets, one of which is a marginal detection. Among these is an outstanding new edge-on system with diameter of 1000 AU and clear structural asymmetries suggestive of perturbations from planetary-mass companions. In this talk we will present HST images of these five new debris disk systems and discuss their characteristics.
- Publication:
-
American Astronomical Society Meeting Abstracts #223
- Pub Date:
- January 2014
- Bibcode:
- 2014AAS...22340907P