Brilliant images of 20 million years old star Beta Pictoris have recently been captured by the Hubble Telescope. In the images, a large planet can be seen embedded in the debris disk of the young star. The discovery of the planet was also claimed by the same telescope in 2009. Astronomers have determined that the young star is the only one having both a gigantic planet and debris disk.

Astronomers world over will be able to observe the large amount of motion of the star in matter of a few years because of its short orbital period, which is between 18 to 22 years. This is also the reason researchers have been able to easily study the young star and how deformation of its disk was caused by a huge planet embedded within the disk.

The presence of debris in its solar system is attributable to a large amount of recent collisions between planets and asteroids, said scientists. The young star is distanced 63 light years away from earth and is the nearest among other disk systems.

Astronomers have come across two dozen similar stars, but what makes Beta Pictoris unique is the fact that its disk is visible from earth because of being extraordinarily bright. A bright body of dust exists at the southwestern part of the disk. An immense collision led to the creation of the dust. The collision was so strong that it destroyed an object of the size of Mars.
A complicated structure for the inner disk was predicted by some computer simulations based on gravitational pull by a short-period giant planet.

“The new images reveal the inner disk and confirm the predicted structures. This finding validates models, which will help us to deduce the presence of other exoplanets in other disks”, said Daniel Apai, one of the researchers, in a news release.