Credit: Credit for Hubble Data: NASA, ESA, D. Apai and G. Schneider (University of Arizona), Credit for ALMA Data: NRAO and W.R.F. Dent (ALMA, Santiago, Chile)

This is a color composite image of the large, edge-on, gas-and-dust disk encircling the 20-million-year-old star Beta Pictoris. The image shows a curious asymmetry in the dust and gas distribution. This may be due to a planetary collision within the disk, which may have pulverized the bodies. The new Hubble Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph visible-light image (shown in blue) traces the disk in closer to the star to within about 650 million miles of the star (which is inside Saturn's orbit about the Sun). Radio data from the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) shows the dust (1.3 millimeter is colored green) and carbon monoxide gas (colored red).

Provider: Space Telescope Science Institute

Image Source: https://hubblesite.org/contents/news-releases/2015/news-2015-06

Curator: STScI, Baltimore, MD, USA

Image Use Policy: http://hubblesite.org/copyright/