Hubble image archive

Hubble and ALMA View of Beta Pictoris

Date: Jan 1, 2015
Mission: Hubble Space Telescope
Archive ID: hubblesite-images-2015-06-3494-image

By Kakha Giorgashvili January 1, 2015

This is a color composite image of the large, edge-on, gas-and-dust disk encircling the 20-million-year-old star Beta Pictoris. The image shows a curious asymmetry in the dust and gas distribution. This may be due to a planetary collision within the disk, which may have pulverized the bodies. The new Hubble Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph visible-light image (shown in blue) traces the disk in closer to the star to within about 650 million miles of the star (which is inside Saturn's orbit about the Sun). Radio data from the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) shows the dust (1.3 millimeter is colored green) and carbon monoxide gas (colored red).

Credits

Credit for Hubble Data: NASA, ESA, D. Apai and G. Schneider (University of Arizona);
Credit for ALMA Data: NRAO and W.R.F. Dent (ALMA, Santiago, Chile)

Image Details

About The Object
Object Name	Beta Pictoris
Object Description	Star with Circumstellar Disk
R.A. Position	05h 47m 17.08s
Dec. Position	-51° 3' 59.43"
Constellation	Pictor
Distance	63 light-years (19 parsecs)
About The Data
Data Description	The image was created from Hubble data from the following proposals: PI: S. Heap (Eureka Scientific and NASA/GSFC) and PI: D. Apai (University of Arizona). The science team includes: D. Apai and G. Schneider (University of Arizona), C. Grady (Eureka Scientific and NASA/GSFC), M. Wyatt (University of Cambridge), A.-M. Lagrange (CNRS, Grenoble, France), M. Kuchner and C. Stark (NASA/GSFC), and S. Lubow (STScI).
Instrument	HST>STIS