Beta Pictoris -- new planet imaged by ESO?

[ngcles]

Hi All,

Seems images of extra-solar planets are almost becoming as common as muck.

ESO today annouced the discovery (by direct imaging) by a team of French astronomers of a probable "Jupiter-type" planet of about 8 Jupiter-masses only 8AU out from the nearby star Beta Pictoris -- a planet that as long ago as the 80s was known to have a dusty disc and from that suspected to harbor planet-sized objects.

Images of the new object and the full story are here:

http://www.spaceref.com:80/news/viewpr.html?pid=27004


Best,

Les D

[jungle11 (Greg)]

It's starting to seem like quite a few groups have been sitting on their info for a while, hording it away?
Maybe they were afraid of being first, perhaps getting shot down by other scientists?
It just seems wierd that this is the the 3rd directly imaged planetary system announced in less than 2 weeks.

[drsimmo (Simon)]

Putting on my cynic's hat for a second... this smells a little of a rush job. I'd say that the astronomers in this case were sitting on the data wondering if it was real, when the other images came out last week.

Note this very telling quote from the press release:

"We cannot yet rule out definitively, however, that the candidate companion could be a foreground or background object," cautions co-worker Gael Chauvin. "To eliminate this very small possibility, we will need to make new observations that confirm the nature of the discovery."

A repeat observation to confirm the common proper motion of the two objects (i.e. that they move across the sky together) is vital. It is something that both of the recent teams did before they put out a press release.

[Jen]

cool yeah whats with all these new findings all of a sudden