NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has captured images of a huge gas-and-dust disk surrounding the 'young' 20 million year-old star, Beta Pictoris. So far, Beta Pictoris (discovered in 2009) is the only debris disk that has a huge planet.

The Beta Pictoris disk consists of a large amount of dust caused by recent collisions among planets and asteroids that have not been detected so far. Daniel Apai from the University of Arizona said a complex structure for the inner disk was predicted by some computer simulations because of gravitational pull by the short-period huge planet.

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"The new images reveal the inner disk and confirm the predicted structures. This finding validates models, which will help us to deduce the presence of other exoplanets in other disks," explained Apai.

The planet, which orbits Beta Pictorous every 18 to 20 years, allows scientists to study in a kind of slow motion how the large planet distorts the gas and dust cloud around its star.

New visible-light Hubble images trace the dust and gas disk to within 650 million miles of the star. The planet orbits at 900 million miles and was imaged by the European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope six years ago.

Researchers note the disk appears especially dusty, which could be caused by collisions between planet- and asteroid-sized objects in the disk.

When the James Webb Space Telescope launches in 2018 followed by the European Extremely Large Telescope in 2024, researchers should get an even better view of the processes in action around Beta Pictoris.

TagsHubble Space Telescope, hubble, NASA, Beta Pictoris, Beta Pictoris star, Star, space exploration, debris disk