Webb’s MIRI (Mid-Infrared Instrument) shows the star system Beta Pictoris. (IMAGE)
Caption
This image from Webb’s MIRI (Mid-Infrared Instrument) shows the star system Beta Pictoris. An edge-on disk of dusty debris generated by collisions between planetesimals (orange) dominates the view and is labeled “main disk plane.” While a secondary disk (cyan), inclined 5 degrees relative to the main disk, was already known, Webb showed its true extent at lower left. Webb also detected a never-before-seen feature labeled the cat’s tail. A coronagraph (black circle and two small disks) has been used to block the light of the central star. A scale bar shows that the disks of Beta Pic extend for hundreds of astronomical units (AU), where one AU is the average Earth-Sun distance. (In our solar system, Neptune orbits 30 AU from the sun.) In this image light at 15.5 microns is colored cyan and 23 microns is orange (filters F1550C and F2300C, respectively).
Credit
NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, C. Stark and K. Lawson (NASA GSFC), J. Kammerer (ESO), and M. Perrin (STScI).
Usage Restrictions
No restrictions.
License
Public Domain