A team of scientists using the Very Large Telescop Interferometer (VLTI) in near-infrared light detects exozodiacal light. The team observed 92 stars close by to probe exozodiacal light from hot dust near their habital zones then combined the new data with prior observations. The scientists observed the light around nine of the targeted stars. Bright exozodiacal light is created by the glowing grains from hot exozodiacal dust, or the reflection of starlight off the grains.

Zodiacal light appears as a faint diffuse white glow that is visible in the night sky, after twilight, or before dawn from dark, clear sites on Earth. This light is formed when sunlight is reflected off tiny particles and appears to extend upwards from the vicinity of the sun. This reflected light is observed from Earth and from any location in the solar system.

The glow that is observed in this study is a more extreme version of this same phenomenon. Although this exozodiacal light, zodiacal light around other star systems, has previously been detected, it is the first large systematic study of the phenomenon surrounding nearby stars.

As opposed to earlier observations, the scientists did not observe dust that will later form into planets, but dust formed by collisions between small planets a few kilometers in size.

The paper’s lead author, Steve Ertel, from ESO and the University of Grenoble in France, said in a statement, “If we want to study the evolution of Earth-like planets close to the habitable zone, we need to observe the zodiacal dust in this region around other stars.” He continued, “Detecting and characterising this kind of dust around other stars is a way to study the architecture and evolution of planetary systems.”

According to EarthSky, the dust grains that reflect sunlight in zodiacal lights are believed to be remains from the process that created our Earth and other planets in our solar system 4.5 billion years ago.