Classroom Aid - Beta Pictoris

beta pictoris is about 60 light years away it is one of the best known examples of a star surrounded by a Dusty debris disc observations done with eso's very large telescope have proven the presence of a planet around the star it has nine times Jupiter's mass here's a detailed Hubble picture of the large Edge on gas and dust disc encircling the 20 milliony old star a coron the black circle and two small discs has been used to block the light of the Central Star the new visible light Hubble image traces the disc to within about 1,46 million km or 650 million mil of the star here's the web mid infrared image unexpectedly web's infrared capabilities detected a new feature of the beta piic system a curvy branch of dust that resembles the shape of a cat tail this tail extends from the southwest portion of the secondary debris disc and is estimated to span 16 billion kilm or 10 billion miles the dust that forms the tail may be similar to the matter found on the surfaces of comets and asteroids in our solar system further analysis is required to understand the origins of the cat's tail but collision between asteroids comets or planetesimals may be responsible