New observations of the giant planet orbiting β Pictoris reveals new details

An international team of astronomers observed the β Pic system, using the VLT/NaCo instrument at 2,18 μm, previous observations having been made near 4 μm. They detected the planet again and compared these new observations with the previous ones, as illustrated in Fig. 1. Combining all the data together shows that the planet is moving around the star, as expected from the previous data. Analyzing these new observations, the team was then able to measure the mass of the planet, around 7-11x the mass of Jupiter, and its effective temperature at 1100-1700°C.

These new data reveals details of the formation of the planet, especially because the system is very young. The planet β Pic b is still very warm, implying that it has retained most of the primordial heat acquired during its formation. If it has been formed in a similar way to the giant planets of our solar system, its mass and temperature cannot be explained by some evolutionary models that hypothesize a total release of the energy acquired during the accretion of disk materials.

Future bservations of β Pictoris b with NaCo and also with the next generation VLT instrument SPHERE should soon provide more details about its atmosphere and orbital properties and about the way this companion influences the surrounding disk material.

Source: Astronomy and Astrophysics