PARIS, France -- A new planet has said to have been recently discovered circling around the Beta Pictoris. This fledgling star found in the Milky Way Galaxy si giving astronomers a glimpse of what it is like for a planet to start life. This is according to the report published on Monday of this week.
"We are talking about a new planet that is about 3,000 times heavier than the Earth. It is situated 2.7 times farther from its star compared to the Earth whose distance from the Sun is just enough to get the heat come through the Earth's atmosphere," said Anne-Marie Lagrange. She is an astronomer from France working at the National Centre for Scientific Research. She is the lead author to the study that was published in the journal Nature Astronomy.
The new planet is referred to by its discovers as b Pitoris c. It has been observed to complete its orbit around its sun for 1,200 days. There is another planet that can be likened to the big sister of the new planet discovered. It was discovered by Lafrange and her team back in 2009. Much like that of the b Pictoris c, this new discovery is a glassy giant from outer space.
Visible to the naked eye, that's why scientists could not get over the marvel of wisdom and good looks that come with Beta Pictoris. In fact, this planet is so heavy that it has the mass that is twice as heavy as that of the Earth. It is much like a newborn comparison test, only this time it has been checked 23 years after. The Sun is believed to be 4.5 billion years old.
The new planet is quite near the Earth with just over 63 light-years in distance. The planet is surrounded by a disk of stellar dust moving like a swirling halo. This has made Beta Pictoris some sort of a celebrity star back in the 1980s.
"To gain better understanding of the formation and evolution of planets in its early stages, this is probably one of the best examples to look into. It is the planetary system that we know of," Lagrange said.
The observations that were released say that the two planets are still in the process of taking shape. Today, Beta Pictoris remains to be one of the brightest stars in its constellation.
