CAPE CANAVERAL — Astronomers have discovered a new planet orbiting the star Beta Pictoris, designated Beta Pictoris d. Two independent research teams detected the planet just days apart in late 2023, making it the dimmest exoplanet ever directly imaged from Earth.

A Scottish and German-led team identified Beta Pictoris d using the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope in Chile. Around the same time, a California-led group detected the same planet using NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope. Both teams kept their work separate to avoid influencing each other’s results, a practice intended to strengthen the reliability of their findings.

The Scottish and German team, which included researchers from the University of Edinburgh and the European Southern Observatory, confirmed the planet’s orbit by analyzing 11 years of archival data. Markus Bonse, co-leader of this team and an astronomer at the European Southern Observatory, described the effort as "very much playing hide-and-seek for 11 years." Ben Sutlieff, a researcher from the University of Edinburgh involved in the discovery, added, "We’ve now built a picture of this planet, and we are very excited to see what more can be learned about it."

The California-led team, led by Aidan Gibbs of the University of California San Diego, made its detection using two separate observations from the Webb Space Telescope. Gibbs noted the implications for understanding planetary formation, saying, "The giant planets have formed, but smaller terrestrial planets could still be forming." Both teams published their results in the Astrophysical Journal Letters, offering complementary confirmation of the new world.

Beta Pictoris d is slightly larger than Jupiter and takes 91 years to complete a single orbit around its host star. It is 100 times fainter than the previously known planets in the Beta Pictoris system, which contributed to its long elusiveness despite decades of observation. The planet orbits Beta Pictoris, a star located 63 light-years from Earth in the southern constellation Pictor.

A light-year is nearly 6 trillion miles. Beta Pictoris is the second-brightest star in its constellation and part of a star system estimated to be about 20 million years old—very young by astronomical standards.

Beta Pictoris d’s detection marks an advance in direct imaging techniques, which have confirmed fewer than 100 of the more than 6,000 known exoplanets, according to NASA. Most exoplanets are found indirectly, by measuring the brief dimming that occurs when a planet passes in front of its star. Direct imaging—capturing actual light from the planet itself—is far more difficult and typically limited to young, bright, massive planets far from their stars. Beta Pictoris d’s extreme faintness pushes the limits of current technology and demonstrates the growing capabilities of both ground-based observatories like the Very Large Telescope and space-based instruments like the Webb Space Telescope.

The Beta Pictoris system has long been a focal point for astronomers studying planet formation. Its relative youth, proximity to Earth, and surrounding debris disk make it an ideal laboratory for observing how planetary systems evolve. The discovery of Beta Pictoris d, with its wide orbit and atmospheric signatures suggesting strong CO2 absorption, provides new insights into how giant planets form and interact with circumstellar material. Its orbital characteristics also support theories that it sculpts the inner edge of the system’s debris disk, reinforcing the link between observed disk structures and unseen planetary companions.