Finding a link with a .tiff file for this one has been… hard… but it’s still really cool.
This is NOT an artist’s rendering. This is a direct image of an exoplanet, Beta Pictoris B:
![Beta Pictoris B orbiting its star](https://i2.wp.com/www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/betapic.jpg?resize=852%2C667)
Beta Pictoris B orbiting its star
Beta Pictoris, the star, is the large, blurred out circle in the middle. Beta Pictoris B is the small, light, pixelated circle at the bottom right of the star.
How cool is this?
Extremely cool!
Actually, it’s pretty darned hot -- 1700 Kelvin (over 2400F), even though it’s pretty far from the star. It’s a super Jupiter, and almost big enough to be a brown dwarf.
Hi, Nathan. Thank you for sharing this amazing image.
By the way, as I understand it, the letter after a star’s name is capitalized if it identifies another star. For an exoplanet it should be lower-case. (Even though that does look weird.)
Thanks for the info! I’ll fix that. BTW… may I inquire as to your username? The reason is this… I’m participating in a YouTube series/ARG called TribeTwelve, and one of the characters that recently began giving us puzzles to solve is Scriniarii the Archivist.
So of course I’m just a bit curious…
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Beta Pictoris is marvelous but I think Fomalhaut is even better :
http://www.space.com/22947-fomalhaut.html
As the iconic “Saurons eye” image and is also brighter and easier to see especially for those in the northern hemisphere. (Where I gather it is still fairly southerly but less so than the constellation of Pictor.)