Rings Around Beta Pictoris
Explanation:
An unusual dust disk surrounds
nearby star
Beta Pictoris.
Discovered in 1983, astronomers are still learning
just how unusual this disk is.
Recent images and computer simulations
indicate that the disk contains several
elliptical
dust rings larger than our own
Solar System.
The
above image taken with the
Hubble Space Telescope
uncovered evidence of these rings as apparent
knots in the
edge-on disk.
The ring model naturally explains why the
disk
protrudes longer on one side than the other.
These rings might have been formed when a nearby star passed
Beta Pic about 100,000 years ago.
Astronomers are searching for this intruder star, which is
not the foreground star visible in the
wider image.
Beta Pic is only 50
light-years away and thought to harbor
planets.
Authors & editors:
Robert Nemiroff
(MTU) &
Jerry Bonnell
(USRA)
NASA Web Site Statements, Warnings,
and Disclaimers
NASA Official: Jay Norris.
Specific
rights apply.
A service of:
LHEA at
NASA /
GSFC
& Michigan Tech. U.
