eso0842 — Science Release Beta Pictoris planet finally imaged?
21 November 2008 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. The hot star Beta Pictoris is one
of the best-known examples of stars surrounded by a dusty
'debris' disc. Debris discs are composed of dust resulting from
collisions among larger bodies like planetary embryos or
asteroids. They are a bigger version of the zodiacal dust in our
Solar System. Its disc was the first to be imaged — as early as
1984 — and remains the best-studied system. Earlier observations
showed a warp of the disc,