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'Found you!' Astronomers spot faintest exoplanet ever seen from Earth after a decade of hide-and-seek
Space • • general
Key Points:
- Astronomers have discovered Beta Pictoris d, a faint exoplanet located 63 light-years away, marking the third planet found orbiting the star Beta Pictoris after over a decade of observation.
- Beta Pictoris d is a gas giant with about 2.4 times the mass of Jupiter, making it smaller and cooler than its siblings Beta Pictoris b and c, and is the faintest exoplanet ever directly imaged from Earth.
- The planet's discovery resolves mysteries about the star system’s dust and debris disk, as its mass and position explain the disk's unusual shape and location.
- The discovery was serendipitous, originating from efforts to study Beta Pictoris b, and was confirmed through analysis of 11 years of archival data.
- This finding makes Beta Pictoris only the second star system, after HR 8799, to have more than two directly imaged exoplanets, providing valuable insights into planetary formation in the same environment.
