images

The star Beta Pictoris

by

Nasa/Novapix

Reference

a-eto01-01000

Date

2006-09-03

Image from the 2.5-meter telescope at the Carnegie Institution's Las Campanas Observatory in Chile. This image, in false colors, shows a disk of dust around the star Beta Pictoris, some 50 light years from Earth. The disk, viewed edge on, is in the center of the picture running upper left to lower right. Beta Pictoris is in the center, in the crosshairs, and is blacked out so the dust disk is visible. Other stars in the scene show up as black dots, with or without rings of yellow and red. Analysis of the disk suggests that some material may already have been swept up to form planets.