This is a color composite image of the large, edge-on, gas-and-dust disk encircling the 20-million-year-old star Beta Pictoris. The image shows a curious asymmetry in the dust and gas distribution. This may be due to a planetary collision within the disk, which may have pulverized the bodies. The new Hubble Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph visible-light image (shown in blue) traces the disk in closer to the star to within about 650 million miles of the star (which is inside Saturn's orbit about the Sun). Radio data from the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) shows the dust (1.3 millimeter is colored green) and carbon monoxide gas (colored red).
Credits
Credit for Hubble Data: NASA, ESA, D. Apai and G. Schneider (University of Arizona);Credit for ALMA Data: NRAO and W.R.F. Dent (ALMA, Santiago, Chile)
| About The Object | |
|---|---|
| Object Name | Beta Pictoris |
| Object Description | Star with Circumstellar Disk |
| R.A. Position | 05h 47m 17.08s |
| Dec. Position | -51° 3' 59.43" |
| Constellation | Pictor |
| Distance | 63 light-years (19 parsecs) |
| About The Data | |
| Data Description | The image was created from Hubble data from the following proposals: PI: S. Heap (Eureka Scientific and NASA/GSFC) and PI: D. Apai (University of Arizona). The science team includes: D. Apai and G. Schneider (University of Arizona), C. Grady (Eureka Scientific and NASA/GSFC), M. Wyatt (University of Cambridge), A.-M. Lagrange (CNRS, Grenoble, France), M. Kuchner and C. Stark (NASA/GSFC), and S. Lubow (STScI). |
| Instrument | HST>STIS |
| About The Object | |
|---|---|
| Object Name | A name or catalog number that astronomers use to identify an astronomical object. |
| Object Description | The type of astronomical object. |
| R.A. Position | Right ascension – analogous to longitude – is one component of an object's position. |
| Dec. Position | Declination – analogous to latitude – is one component of an object's position. |
| Constellation | One of 88 recognized regions of the celestial sphere in which the object appears. |
| Distance | The physical distance from Earth to the astronomical object. Distances within our solar system are usually measured in Astronomical Units (AU). Distances between stars are usually measured in light-years. Interstellar distances can also be measured in parsecs. |
| Dimensions | The physical size of the object or the apparent angle it subtends on the sky. |
| About The Data | |
| Data Description |
|
| Instrument | The science instrument used to produce the data. |
| Exposure Dates | The date(s) that the telescope made its observations and the total exposure time. |
| Filters | The camera filters that were used in the science observations. |
| About The Image | |
| Image Credit | The primary individuals and institutions responsible for the content. |
| Publication Date | The date and time the release content became public. |
| Color Info | A brief description of the methods used to convert telescope data into the color image being presented. |
| Orientation | The rotation of the image on the sky with respect to the north pole of the celestial sphere. |
