Astronomers have created a video of an exoplanet called Beta Pictoris b, located 63 light-years away in the constellation Pictor, orbiting its star.
It’s rare that we get to see exoplanets themselves. Most often, planets in other star systems are too small and too dim to be directly detected, so astronomers infer their presence based on their effects on their host stars. But occasionally, it is possible to image a star directly — and recently, astronomers managed to create not only an image, but a video of an exoplanet orbiting its star.
The time-lapse video shows a planet called Beta Pictoris b, located 63 light-years away in the constellation Pictor. The planet is big and its star is bright, which, along with its relatively close proximity, allowed researchers to see it directly. The time-lapse covers 17 years of footage in just 10 seconds, showing the planet moving around three quarters of the way around one orbit.
