Hidden companion binds a vast cloud of vaporized metals around a distant star
Astronomers observed a sun-like star, J0705+0612, being occulted by a colossal 120‑million‑mile‑wide cloud of metal-rich gas and dust for about nine months. Using high‑resolution spectroscopy from Gemini South (GHOST) and other telescopes, they mapped the cloud’s three‑dimensional motions and chemical makeup (iron, calcium), finding it is bound to another object heavy enough to exert gravity—likely a massive planet or a low‑mass star. The team proposes the cloud formed from a collision between two orbiting bodies, creating a circumplanetary or circumsecondary disk. The discovery, published in The Astronomical Journal, offers a rare glimpse into dynamic, late‑stage planetary systems and how such large structures can persist in a system thought to be ~2 billion years old.