61VIR_H3

Artist’s impression of the debris disc and planets around the star 61 Vir, superimposed on Herschel PACS images at 70, 100 and 160 micrometre wavelengths.
The line drawing superimposed on the Herschel image gives a schematic representation of the location and orientation of the star, planets and disc, albeit not to scale. The black oval outline sketched onto the Herschel data represents the innermost boundary of the debris disc; the approximate
location of the outermost boundary is represented by the outer set of dashed lines. It is not possible to identify the central star due to smearing of the Herschel data.
The two planets around 61 Vir have masses between 5 and 18 Earth masses and are both located within 0.22 Astronomical Units (AU, where 1 AU is the distance between Earth and our Sun) of the central star. A vast debris disc extends from approximately 30 AU to 100 AU.