b Pictoris tagged posts

A Second Planet in the Beta Pictoris system

The disk of dust surrounding β Pictoris and the position of the planets β Pictoris b and c.
© P Rubini / AM Lagrange

A team of astronomers led by Anne-Marie Lagrange, a CNRS researcher at the Institut de Planétologie et d’Astrophysique de Grenoble (CNRS/Université Grenoble Alpes)1, has discovered a second giant planet in orbit around b Pictoris, a star that is relatively young (23 million years old) and close (63.4 light years), and surrounded by a disk of dust.

The β Pictoris system has fascinated astronomers for the last thirty years since it enables them to observe a planetary system in the process of forming around its star...

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