NASA's Hubble Takes Unique Picture of Beta Pictoris Bright Disk

Ekaterina Blinova — US astronomers have taken an extraordinary detailed picture of a gigantic gas-and-dust disk surrounding the "young" 20-million-year old Beta Pictoris star.

"Beta Pictoris remains the only directly imaged debris disk that has a giant planet (discovered in 2009). Because the orbital period is comparatively short (estimated to be between 18 and 22 years), astronomers can see large motion in just a few years," Space Telescope Science Institute elaborates in its press release.

The new images obtained by the scientists demonstrate the inner disk's complex structure. The disk looks rather dusty possibly due to recent major collisions between numerous unseen asteroid-size and planet-size bodies, orbiting the star.

"Some computer simulations predicted a complicated structure for the inner disk due to the gravitational pull by the short-period giant planet. The new images reveal the inner disk and confirm the predicted structures. This finding validates models, which will help us to deduce the presence of other exoplanets in other disks," Daniel Apai from the University of Arizona said in an official statement.

However, comparing images dating back to 1997 with the latest photos, the researchers come to the conclusion that not much has changed over 15 years.

Beta Pictoris was discovered in 1984 and since then has been closely observed with NASA's Hubble Space Telescope. The researchers were truly impressed by its bright disk of light-scattering circumstellar dust and debris. The disk can be easily seen due to its extraordinary brightness, caused by large amount of starlight-scattering elements. On the other hand, the researchers point out that Beta Pictoris debris disk system is one of the closest to Earth (63 light-years).

Among other disk systems observed by the astronomers, Beta Pictoris remains the best example of "what a young planetary system looks like," the researchers emphasize.