Beta PIctoris Archives

GLS periodograms of individual wavelength contrast lightcurves. In each of the panels, the light pink, dark pink, and black highlighted lines are the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd 12CO bandheads, respectively. The grey horizontal lines indicate the 1%, 5%, and 10% false alarm probabilities. The black vertical lines indicate the expected rotation period at 8.7 hrs and its first integer harmonic at 4.35 hrs. The top panel shows the uncorrected periodogram, with all wavelengths significantly affected by systematic effects caused by the fibre coupling. The middle panel shows the periodogram after the polynomial correction, while the bottom panel adds Gaussian smoothing to this to highlight strong periodic signals. -- astro-ph.EP

Astrochemistry, Atmospheres, Climate, Weather, Beta Pictoris, Exoplanets, -moons, -comets, Icy Worlds, Imaging & Spectroscopy, Interstellar, Status Report

13CO And Potential Variability In β Pictoris b With GRAVITY+

by Keith CowingJune 14, 2026June 14, 2026

The 12CO/13CO ratio was introduced as an indicator for where in the disk a planet has formed. Previously a lower value compared to the host star’s was suggested to show […]

Carbon isotope ratio as a function of the semi-major axis for young, directly-imaged companions. Measurements in the HR 8799 system for planets e, b, and c (Ruffio et al. 2026) are shown with squares and connected with a dotted line. The other measurements are for HD 984 b (Costes et al. 2024), GQ Lup b (González Picos et al. 2025b), VHS 1256 b (Gandhi et al. 2023), YSES 1 b (Zhang et al. 2024), AB Pic b (Gandhi et al. 2025), and DH Tau b and HIP 79098 b (Xuan et al. 2024a). The present-day local ISM (12C/13C = 68±14; Milam et al. 2005) and solar photospheric value (12C/13C⊙ = 91.4 ± 1.3; Lyons et al. 2018) are overlaid. The horizontal line spans the typical CO snow-line location for a solar-type host star (22–36 au). For stars hotter than the Sun, the CO snow line is expected at distances greater than 30 au, so β Pic b is located interior to the CO snow line. -- astro-ph.EP

Astrochemistry, Astronomy & Telescopes, Biosignatures & Paleobiology, Exoplanets, -moons, -comets, Imaging & Spectroscopy, Interstellar, Status Report

The Carbon Isotope Ratio Of β Pic b With High-resolution Spectroscopy

by Keith CowingJune 13, 2026June 13, 2026

Isotopic ratios trace the formation and evolution of planets and link their atmospheres to the chemistry of their natal protoplanetary discs.

Illustration of an exocomet transit. -- astro-ph.EP

Astrochemistry, Astrogeology, Astronomy & Telescopes, Beta Pictoris, Biochemistry & Organic Chemistry, Comets and Asteroids, Exoplanets, -moons, -comets, Icy Worlds, Imaging & Spectroscopy, Status Report

Observations Of Exocomets

by Keith CowingMarch 24, 2026March 24, 2026

Active small bodies in extrasolar systems, the extrasolar analogues of Solar System comets, provide insights into the orbital evolution and physical processes shaping planetary systems.

Astronomy & Telescopes, Beta Pictoris, Comets and Asteroids, Exoplanets, -moons, -comets, Icy Worlds, Imaging & Spectroscopy, Status Report

Visual Inspection Of Potential Exocomet Transits Identified Through Machine Learning And Statistical Methods

by Keith CowingFebruary 7, 2026February 7, 2026

In this work, we explore several ways to detect possible exocomet transits in the TESS (The Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite) light curves. The first one has been presented in our […]

Spectroscopic observations of β Pic obtained on April 29, 2025. The HARPS spectrum is not flux-calibrated and was simply renormalized to a flux level similar to that of the STIS data. Numerous saturated absorption lines are visible in the STIS and HARPS spectra, attributed to Si ii, C i, Al ii, Fe ii, Mg ii and Ca ii. The HST spectra are consistent with a stellar model from the PHOENIX library (thick grey line, Husser et al. 2013) at Teff = 8000 K (see Sect. 4.1). -- astro-ph.EP

Beta Pictoris, Comets and Asteroids, Exoplanets, -moons, -comets, Icy Worlds, Imaging & Spectroscopy, Status Report

Transit Distances And Composition Of Low-velocity Exocomets In The β Pictoris System

by Keith CowingJanuary 25, 2026January 25, 2026

β Pictoris is a young nearby A5V star, about 20 Myr old, embedded in a prominent debris disc. For the past 40 years, variable absorption features have been observed in […]

Upper mass limits for a potential lunar companion to β Pic b as a function of orbital period. The color is proportional to the density of MCMC posterior samples, and the solid curves indicate the 68%, 95%, and 99.7% confidence intervals. The upper panel covers longer orbital periods (≲ 1450 days, within the dynamical stability limit), where companions more massive than ∼ 0.5 MJup (∼ 60 M⊕) are excluded. The dashed line marks the Earth–Moon mass ratio scaled to β Pic b, and the solid green curve shows the moon/binary planet boundary from Stern & Levison (2002), which marks the theoretical separation between large moons and binary planetary systems based on mass ratios and orbital stability criteria. The lower panel zooms in on short orbital periods (≲ 50 days), where the constraints are weaker. The dashed line indicates the Pluto–Charon mass ratio, while the solid green curve again shows the Stern & Levison (2002) moon/binary planet boundary. -- astro-ph.EP

Astronomy & Telescopes, Beta Pictoris, Exoplanets, -moons, -comets, Status Report, Stellar Cartography

First Astrometric Limits On Binary Planets And Exomoons Orbiting β Pictoris b

by Keith CowingDecember 11, 2025December 10, 2025

The search for exomoons, or moons in other star systems, has attracted significant interest in recent years, driven both by advancements in detection sensitivity and by the expanding population of […]

Distance versus time distributions for the 49 encounters with β Pic that have an empirical probability of at least 95% of occurring within 2 pc. The coloured points indicate the rescaled Mahalanobis distances (ensuring a common colour scale for all stars) derived from the encounter parameters. Points above the 95th percentile of this metric are shown in grey. The black bars represent the 95% confidence intervals in time and distance, obtained from the 2.5th and 97.5th percentiles of the corresponding marginal distributions for the further encounters and using the 95th percentile to define the one-tailed distance interval for the closest ones. The central points are the 50th percentiles. The critical radius of 2 pc is indicated by the red horizontal line. The centres of mass of binary systems, listed in table 4, are marked at the pair [t50, d50] corresponding to that star. -- astro-ph.SR

Beta Pictoris, Exoplanets, -moons, -comets, Status Report, Stellar Cartography

A Kinematic History Of Stellar Encounters With Beta Pictoris

by Keith CowingOctober 13, 2025October 13, 2025

Beta Pictoris is an A-type star hosting a complex planetary system with two massive gas giants and a prominent debris disk.

Results of the forward modeling of β Pic b using the most recent spectro/photometric observations of the planet (including CRIRES+) using BT-Settl. Top panel: spectra (points) and photometry (squares) of β Pic b alongside a Rλ ∼ 4 000 spectrum extracted using the best fit parameters for the inversion. Observations have been re-normalized using the analytic scaling factors computed during the inversion. Associated residuals are shown below. Dotted lines represents the ±σ (68%) confidence interval. Bottom sub-panels: zoom versions of the top panel on GRAVITY (upper left), SINFONI (upper right), CRIRES+-K (lower left) and CRIRES+-M (lower right). Similarly to Landman et al. (2024), each CRIRES+ spectra are shown smoothed by their retrieved broadening to show the planet features more clearly. -- astro-ph.EP

Astronomy & Telescopes, Atmospheres, Climate, Weather, Beta Pictoris, Biogeochemical Cycles & Geobiology, Biosignatures & Paleobiology, Exoplanets, -moons, -comets, Imaging & Spectroscopy, Status Report

Multi-modal Atmospheric Characterization Of beta Pictoris b: Adding High-resolution Continuum Spectra From GRAVITY

by Keith CowingOctober 1, 2025October 1, 2025

We present the first VLTI/GRAVITY observations at Rλ∼4000 of β Pic b. These four high S/N (∼20) K-band spectra conserve both the pseudo-continuum and molecular absorption patterns.

Telluric-corrected HARPS observations at the sodium doublet, obtained on two nights nearly one year apart, vertically offset for clarity. In both nights, significant disk line absorption is visible, as well as red-shifted lines attributed to a form of exocomet activity. Labels in black indicate the nights of observation, the number of spectra taken and the total exposure time. The night-average spectrum prior to telluric correction is over-plotted in orange, demonstrating the relative positions of the telluric water lines. -- astro-ph.EP

Astrochemistry, Beta Pictoris, Biochemistry & Organic Chemistry, Comets and Asteroids, Exoplanets, -moons, -comets, Imaging & Spectroscopy, Status Report

Exocomets of Beta Pictoris I: Exocomet destruction, sodium and disk line variability in 17 years of HARPS observations

by Keith CowingJune 5, 2025June 5, 2025

The young β Pictoris system has been monitored with high-resolution optical spectrographs for decades. These observations have revealed strongly variable absorption in the Ca II H\&K lines attributed to in-falling […]

Typical abundances of 11 atom and ions in β Pic exocomets, relative to Fe ii and normalised by solar abundances. The numerical values used to build this figures are provided in Tab. 2. Grey crosses indicate the best-fit model with Saha’s equation -- astro-ph.EP

Astrochemistry, Astrogeology, Astronomy & Telescopes, Beta Pictoris, Comets and Asteroids, Exoplanets, -moons, -comets, Icy Worlds, Imaging & Spectroscopy, Status Report

Abundances Of Refractory Ions In Beta Pictoris Exocomets

by Keith CowingMarch 25, 2025March 25, 2025

Beta Pic is a young, A5V star, known for harbouring a large number of exocomets, which frequently transit the star and produce absorption signatures.

Beta PIctoris

13CO And Potential Variability In β Pictoris b With GRAVITY+

The Carbon Isotope Ratio Of β Pic b With High-resolution Spectroscopy

Observations Of Exocomets

Visual Inspection Of Potential Exocomet Transits Identified Through Machine Learning And Statistical Methods

Transit Distances And Composition Of Low-velocity Exocomets In The β Pictoris System

First Astrometric Limits On Binary Planets And Exomoons Orbiting β Pictoris b

A Kinematic History Of Stellar Encounters With Beta Pictoris

Multi-modal Atmospheric Characterization Of beta Pictoris b: Adding High-resolution Continuum Spectra From GRAVITY

Exocomets of Beta Pictoris I: Exocomet destruction, sodium and disk line variability in 17 years of HARPS observations

Abundances Of Refractory Ions In Beta Pictoris Exocomets

White Paper On Phototrophic Biosignatures: Research Priorities For The Search For Life On Other Worlds

Autonomous AI-Cosmoindustry and the Quiet Expansion Filter: A Threshold-Based Resolution of the Fermi Paradox

A Scalable Path to Astrometric Exomoon Discoveries with the Nautilus Space Observatory

20 Years Later: The ALH 84001 Debate in Context with Viking’s Results. Lessons Learned and Portals Opened

Ocean Planet Research: 31 New Species Discovered in Two Weeks of Deep Sea Exploration