Beta Pictoris planet finally imaged? (ESO 42/08)‏

A team of French astronomers using ESO's Very Large Telescope have discovered an object located very close to the star Beta Pictoris, and which apparently lies inside its disc. With a projected distance from the star of only 8 times the Earth-Sun distance, this object is most likely the giant planet suspected from the peculiar shape of the disc and the previously observed infall of comets onto the star. It would then be the first image of a planet that is as close to its host star as Saturn is to the Sun.

Read more in ESO 42/08 athttp://www.eso.org/public/outreach/press-rel/pr-2008/pr-42-08.html

Kind Regards, The ESO education and Public Outreach Dept.

21 November 2008

Beta Pictoris was one of the first stars found with a dust disk around it, which in
the 1980s was the equivalent of finding an outright alien planet.