New image suggests planets could form around old stars

Space.com : A mass of gas and dust very similar to a protoplanetary disk has been spotted around an old binary star system. Such dusty disks are usually seen around much younger stars. Hans Van Winckel of the University of Leuven in Belgium and his colleagues found the disk using several of the instruments at the Very Large Telescope Interferometer in Chile. The resolution of the image they obtained was equivalent to that of a 150 m telescope. The binary system is an old red giant star paired with a younger normal star, and the dusty disk appears to have been expelled by the red giant. It is the first time that such a disk has been found around a mature star. Although the image doesn’t reveal whether planets are actually forming, it does indicate that the necessary materials are there. The discovery challenges models of both planetary formation and the evolution of binary systems.