A Giant Planet for Beta Pic
A mere 50 light-years away, young star Beta Pictoris became one of the most important stars in the sky in the early 1980s. Satellite and ground-based telescopic observations revealed the presence of a surrounding outer, dusty, debris disk and an inner clear zone about the size of our solar system -- strong evidence for the formation of planets . Infrared observations from European Southern Observatory telescopes subsequently detected a source in the clear zone, now confirmed as a giant planet orbiting Beta Pic . The confirmation comes as the planet is detected at two different positions in its orbit. Designated Beta Pictoris b , the giant planet must have formed rapidly as Beta Pic itself is only 8 to 20 million years old. With an orbital period estimated between 17 and 44 years, Beta Pictoris b could lie near the orbit of Saturn if found in our solar system , making it the closest planet to its parent star directly imaged ... so far .