NASA (Exoplanet Catalog artwork)Beta Pictoris b
A young super-Jupiter carving a disk, with the first measured exoplanet day length
Overview
Beta Pictoris b (abbreviated as β Pic b) is an exoplanet orbiting the young debris disk, A-type main sequence star, Beta Pictoris located approximately 63 light-years (19.4 parsecs, or 6×1014 km) away from Earth in the constellation of Pictor. It has a mass of around 10 Jupiter masses and a radius some 37% to 68% larger than Jupiter's. It orbits at 10 AU from Beta Pictoris, which is about 3.7 times farther than the orbit of Beta Pictoris c. It orbits close to the plane of the debris disk orbiting the star, with a low eccentricity and a period of 23.77 years.
Source: Wikipedia
NASA: Beta Pictoris b is a gas giant exoplanet that orbits a A-type star. Its mass is 8.7 Jupiters, it takes 23.8 years to complete one orbit of its star, and is 10.07 AU from its star. Its discovery was announced in 2008.
Why it matters
- Imaged in 2008 inside the famous Beta Pictoris debris disk, just 63 light-years away.
- Spins once every 8 hours — the first exoplanet rotation ever measured (2014).
- Only about 20 million years old; a second planet, Beta Pictoris c, was confirmed in 2020.
NASA puts it this way: “Beta Pictoris b is a gas giant exoplanet that orbits an A-type star. Its mass is 11.729 Jupiters, it takes 23.6 years to complete one orbit of its star, and is 10.018 AU from its star. Its discovery was announced in 2008.”
Discovery & system
- Discovered
- 2008 · Imaging · Paranal Observatory
- Discovery paper
- Lagrange et al. 2009
- Discoverers
- Anne-Marie Lagrange
- Host star
- bet Pic · A6 V · 8,039 K · 1.79 M☉
- System
- 3 known planets
- Siblings
- bet Pic c, bet Pic d
The system
| World | Period | Distance | Radius | Mass | Temp. |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| bet Pic c | 3.3 yr | 2.7 AU | 1.12 R♃ | 8.7 M♃ | 1,250 K |
| bet Pic b | 23.8 yr | 10.07 AU | 1.65 R♃ | 8.7 M♃ | 1,612 K |
| bet Pic d | 90.9 yr | 26 AU | 1.26 R♃ | 2.4 M♃ | 600 K |
By the numbers
- Radius
- 1.65 R♃18.5 R⊕
- Mass
- 8.7 M♃2,765 M⊕
- Orbital period
- 23.8 yr
- Distance from star
- 10.07 AU1,506 million km
- Eccentricity
- 0.105elliptical
- Equilibrium temp.
- 1,612 K1,339 °C
- Starlight received
- 0.09 × Earth
- Distance from Earth
- 64.4 ly19.7 pc
- Density
- 2.4 g/cm³0.44 × Earth
Sources
Image: NASA (Exoplanet Catalog artwork) · NASA media: generally free of copyright · image page
Text: Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0). Taglines and highlights are editorial.