Hubble Captures Detailed Image of Debris Disk Encircling Beta Pictoris

Excerpt from voicechronicle.com

With the aid of NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope, the astronomers have

captured the most detailed picture of the large disk of gas and dust

surrounding Beta Pictoris, the 20 million-year-old star. It is the only

star detected by astronomers which has an embedded giant planet in the

debris disk. Discovered in the year 2009, the planet orbits the star

once every 18 to 20 years. Thus the scientists studied, in a

comparatively short span of time, the impact of a huge planet on the

massive gas and dust encircling the star. The study would help to have a

better understanding about the birth of planets around young stars.

In the new image, captured by Hubble in the visible light in 2012,

the disk can be spotted within 650 million miles of the star. The giant

planet orbits the star at a distance of 900 million miles. It was imaged

by the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope in infrared

light six years ago. The new image was compared with Hubble images

taken in 1997 and it was found that over 15 years, the dust distribution

of the disk has barely changed. 

The disk was easily visible and unusually bright owing to a huge

amount of starlight-scattering dust. Beta Pictoris is also situated

closer to earth than any other known disk systems, at a distance of 63

light-years. Although Hubble has observed about two-dozen

light-scattering circumstellar disks, Beta Pictoris is the best example

of a young planetary system. Beta Pictoris disk is exceptionally dusty

which might be due to a recent major collision among unseen planet and

asteroid sized objects, embedded in the disk.

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Hubble Captures Detailed Image of Debris Disk Encircling Beta Pictoris