These two Hubble Space Telescope visible-light views of the edge- on disk of dust around the star Beta Pictoris yield telltale evidence for the existence of planets, and possibly the gravitational tug of a companion brown dwarf or bypassing star. Both views reveal warps in the disk that might be caused by the gravitational pull of one or more unseen companions. Since its discovery, Beta Pictoris has long been considered one of the nearest examples of an extrasolar planetary system still forming.
The "false color" images show gradations in the brightness of the disk, caused simply by the fact that the disk shines by reflected starlight, and so the farther the dust is from the central star, the fainter it is. In both views the bright glare of the central star is blocked by a black strip that divides the disk into left (east) and right (west) components. Because the disk is tilted nearly edge-on to Earth the images show a sharp, bright, straight ridge extending over the entire length of the disk.(in our solar system this feature is seen as zodiacal light, where sunlight is reflected by a concentration of dust in the ecliptic plane).
The orbits of the planets of our solar system are added for scale.
[TOP] - This Wide Field Planetary Camera 2 image shows the full extent of the disk, which spans 140 billion miles (1500 astronomical units) edge-to-edge. An unusual flaring at the top of the right side of the disk (the Southwest side of the disk) shows that dust has been pulled above the dense plane of the disk beyond what is observed in the left side. A gravitational perturbation by an unseen substellar- mass companion farther from the star than planets would be, or a tug from a bypassing star might cause this flaring. The image was taken on June 22, 1995.
[BOTTOM] - An unprecedented detailed close-up view of the inner region of the disk taken with the Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph shows a warp in the disk. Though this warp was first seen by Hubble in 1995, the new images go closer to the star than ever before to about 1.4 billion miles (15 astronomical units) - a radius smaller than that of Uranus' orbit. These new details support the presence of one or more planets orbiting the star. The image was taken in September 1997.
Credits
Top: Al Schultz (CSC/STScI, and NASA);Bottom: Sally Heap (GSFC/NASA)
| About The Object | |
|---|---|
| Object Name | Beta Pictoris |
| R.A. Position | 05h 47m 17.08s |
| Dec. Position | -51° 3' 59.45" |
| 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. |
