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Asteroid Collisions May Account For Star`s Odd Appearance The recent collision of two huge asteroids or tiny planets may be the cause of the mysterious lopsided appearance of the most famous of the universe`s planet-forming stars, a team of astronomers says. Relying on observations from the Gemini South telescope in Chile, the University of Florida-led team has concluded that differences in brightness in the dust disc surrounding a star known as Beta Pictoris stem from an extra bright clump on one side of the disc. This clump, the astronomers say, is composed of dust particles that are consistently smaller than particles elsewhere in the disc - likely evidence of a collision of two massive asteroids or tiny developing planets known as planetismals that may have occurred as recently as in the past few decades.
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