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Beta Pictoris Disk Hides Giant Elliptical Ring System

The planetary dust disk around the star Beta Pictoris is dynamically "ringing like a bell," according to astronomers investigating NASA Hubble Space Telescope images. The "clapper" is the gravitational wallop of a star that passed near Beta Pictoris some 100,000 years ago.

The Hubble research team, led by Paul Kalas (Space Telescope Science Institute, Baltimore, Md.), consists of John Larwood (Queen Mary and Westfield College, London, United Kingdom), Bradford Smith (University of Hawaii, Institute for Astronomy, Honolulu, Hawaii), and Alfred Schultz (Space Telescope Science Institute).