Beta Pictoris b is almost certainly a world of wonders, assuming it exists at all. Currently, we don't know much about it. What we do know is that beta Pictoris is surrounded by a disk of dust and gas similar to the disk which our own solar system formed from. In many ways, beta Pictoris may be a solar system in the making. There are two interesting facts about this system. First, the disk does not start at beta Pictoris itself. The inner edge of the disk is 50 AU from beta Pictoris, more distant than Pluto is from the sun. Second, the disk is warped. Both these facts lend credence to the idea that there is something orbiting beta Pictoris that can both clear a wide area of debris and gravitationally affect the disk. That something is a massive planet, perhaps even a brown dwarf. As we have not detected the planet orbiting beta Pictoris using Doppler Spectroscopy, which would give us relatively good values for its speed, distance, and mass, we don't have any exact information about its attributes. We can only make approximations. If we assume a 2.5 to 8 Jupiter mass planet orbiting at about Jupiter-like distances (figures which fit into what we do know of this system) then beta Pictoris b is probably much like its other jovian cousins. It may have a ring system and a retinue of moons. If it is closer to the 8 Jupiter mass end of the spectrum, then its night side will be glowing due to high internal temperatures as we saw with 70 Virginis b. As beta Pictoris is a blue giant, it is intrinsically brighter and hotter than the sun, so beta Pictoris b would receive more energy than Jupiter. Combined with the greater mass involved, the planet and its moons would be at least as dynamic as Jupiter, probably more so. Imagine, for a moment, that you are in a spacecraft passing through the beta Pictoris system. As you fly by the star's giant companion planet, you would be struck by a host of splendors. A menagerie of moons, some frozen snowballs, some volcanic dynamos, some with think hydrocarbon atmospheres. Graceful arcing rings of dust and ice glinting in the ample sunlight. A vast protoplanetary cloud encircling and dominating the whole sky. A brilliant blue diamond of a parent star. And the massive planet itself, slowly glowing with its own heat and gaseous bulk as lightning strikes play across its turbulent surface. This is one system where the potential for awesome beauty is quite high.
View a VRML model of the system. Please be patient while the file downloads. For a VRML tour of our galaxy's exoplanets, check out Extrasolar VR.
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