Beta-Pictoris

Artymowicz P. (1997) Beta Pictoris an early solar system Ann. Rev. Earth Planet. Sci. 25, 175-219. 

The 11.2 pm fine structure on the Si-O silicate feature has provided interesting insight into the relationship between cometary and interstellar materials, because IR observations of silicates in the diffuse interstellar medium and molecular clouds do not show the feature (Molster et al., 2002a,b). Searches for the 11.2 pm fine structure towards the Galactic center indicates that less than 0.5% of interstellar silicates are crystalline (Kemper and Tielens, 2003). The crystalline olivine feature is, however, seen in certain astronomical objects, stars surrounded with disks. It has been seen in Beta Pictoris (Knacke et al., 1993) and Herbig Ae/Be stars... 

Beust H., Vidal-Madjar A., Ferlet R., and Lagrange-Henri A. M. (1994) Cometaiy-like bodies in the protoplanetary disk around beta Pictoris. Astrophys. Space Sci. 212, 147-157. 

FIGURE 2.7 Beta Pictoris imaged in 1993, using the 2.2 m telescope of the Hawaii University at Mauna Kea. Kalas and Jewitt (1995) demonstrated that the disk is asymmetric, a feature that is often the result of gravitational perturbations from planets, although not thought to be the case in this study. 

The final stage in the condensation of a solar nebula is that of planetary formation. Planets are thought to form in a protoplane-tary disk of the type observed around young stellar objects such as Beta Pictoris (Section 2.3.1.1). The lifetime of such dust-laden protoplanetary disks is of the order of 107 years. Until recently we knew very little about processes operating in such protoplanetary disks, and much of what we did know was drawn from the study of the solar system. However, the recent discovery of planetary systems around other stars suggest that our solar system may not be characteristic of planetary systems in general and many... 

Kalas, P. and Jewitt, R, 1995. Assymetries in the Beta Pictoris dust disk. Astron. J., 110, 794-804. 

The pictorial representation on the tide page of this book symbolizes how the different lead generation methods need to work together to spin the LG wheel to deliver high quality lead series. The molecule depicted is an early lead against the beta-site amyloid precursor protein cleaving enzyme 1 (BACEl) [44]. 

---