Beta PIctoris Archives

Radio detections of β Pic b in four observing sessions and at two frequency bands.

Discovery Of Radio Emission From The Exoplanet β Pictoris b

by Keith CowingSeptember 24, 2026September 24, 2026

[astro-ph.EP] Planetary magnetic fields shape atmospheric escape, mediate interactions with stellar winds, and encode information about planetary interiors, yet they have not been directly measured for planets beyond the Solar […]

The separation of β Pictoris b and β Pictoris c from the star in terms of their Hill sphere. β Pictoris b has a longer orbital period (∼20 yr), with a Hill sphere primary transit at MJD ∼58000 and a Hill sphere radius of 1.1 au. β Pictoris c has a shorter orbital period (∼3.3 yr), with two primary transits at MJD 58195+11 −20 and 59415+8 −8 and a secondary transit at 58707+3 −7 . The § Hill sphere radius is approximately 0.3 au. -- [astro-ph.EP]

Beta Pictoris

The Hill Sphere Transits of Beta Pictoris c and The Search for Another 1981-like Event

by Keith CowingSeptember 5, 2026September 5, 2026

[astro-ph.EP]. Beta Pictoris is a young and nearby planetary system hosting an edge-on debris disk and at least three gas-giant planets. Their circumplanetary environments could host exomoons and rings, a […]

Beta Pictoris

Webb Discovers A Hidden Planet In The Beta Pictoris Star System

by Keith CowingJuly 16, 2026July 16, 2026

[NASA] Astronomers using NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope have discovered a giant planet outside our solar system, called an exoplanet, hiding within one of the most intensely studied planetary systems […]

Beta Pictoris

Exoplanet Beta Pictoris d Found After More Than 10 Years Of Searching

by Keith CowingJuly 15, 2026July 15, 2026

[ESO] A team of astronomers have discovered a third planet orbiting the star Beta Pictoris. The new planet, Beta Pictoris d, is 100 times fainter than Beta Pictoris b — […]

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 […]