Zeta Reticuli / Zeta1, Zeta2 Reticuli Zeta1,2 Reticuli Home | Stars | Orbits | Habitability | Life | NASA Zeta1 and Zeta2 Reticuli are yellow-orange stars like our Sun, Sol. (A digitized 2MASS image of Zeta1 and Zeta2 Reticuli may become available from the NASA Exoplanet Archive.) Breaking News On May 18, 2010, a team of astronomers submitted a preprint revealing the presence of a cold, "eccentric" dust ring or debris disk around Zeta2 Reticuli. Observed in far-infrared wavelengths, the "flattened, disk-like structure" has an orbital, semi-major axis of roughly 100 AUs around Zeta2, with a high orbital eccenticity (e ~ 0.3). The observations suggest that the dust was created by collisions in a Edgeworth-Kuiper-like belt of icy bodies, and that the orbital asymmetry could be an indication that the dust is being shepherded by an unseen planetary companion -- among other explanations (Eiroa et al, 2010). System Summary The Zeta1,2 Reticuli, wide-binary system is located around 39.4 to 39.5 light-years from Sol. It lies in the west central part (03:17:46.2-62:34:31.2 and 03:18:12.8-62:30:22.9, ICRS 2000.0) of Constellation Reticulum, the Reticule or Net (an old astronomical instrument used to measure star positions) -- northwest of Kappa and Beta Reticuli. The high proper motion of this system was probably discovered by Willem Jacob Luyten (1899-1994), who found the proper motions of over 520,000 stars despite the loss of sight in one eye since 1925 by building an automated photographic plate scanner and measuring machine. JPL, CalTech, NASA Larger illustration Astronomers have identified Zeta1 Reticuli as a prime target for the Terrestrial Planet Finder (TPF), now postponed indefinitely. Zeta1 Reticuli became one of the top 100 target stars for NASA's Terrestrial Planet Finder (TPF), but this project was indefinitely postponed after NASA budget cutbacks. From left: Betty Hill's post-hypnotic drawing, and Marjorie Fish's best-fit star map (larger image). (Or "a view of the Solar System from slightly beyond Saturn towards the Sun," or hypnotic delusion?) Based on the