Science & Exploration
Around Beta Pictoris
Beta Pictoris is located about 60 light-years away towards the constellation of Pictor (the Painter's Easel) and is one of the best-known examples of a star surrounded by a dusty debris disc. Observations with the NACO instrument on ESO’s Very Large Telescope proved the presence of a planet orbiting almost as close to its parent star as Saturn is to our Sun.
This image, based on data from the Digitized Sky Survey 2, shows a region of approximately 1.7 x 2.3 degrees around Beta Pictoris.
