The photo at the bottom is the most detailed picture to date of a large, edge-on, gas-and-dust disk encircling the 20-million-year-old star Beta Pictoris. The new visible-light Hubble image traces the disk in closer to the star to within about 650 million miles of the star (which is inside the radius of Saturn's orbit about the Sun). When comparing the latest images to Hubble images taken in 1997 (top), astronomers find that the disk's dust distribution has barely changed over 15 years despite the fact that the entire structure is orbiting the star like a carousel. The Hubble Space Telescope photo has been artificially colored to bring out detail in the disk's structure.
Credits
NASA, ESA, and D. Apai and G. Schneider (University of Arizona)| 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 |
| Exposure Dates | September 16-17, 1997 and March 6, 2012 |
| About The Image | |
| Compass Image |  |
| 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. |
