ESO unveils the "magnificent" timelapse of the extraterrestrial planet Beta Pictoris B

Watch the exoplanet disappear from view and reappear next to its bright star, in the video below.

Beta Pictoris b is one of the most studied exoplanets of our cosmic district. Discovered in 2008, this extraterrestrial world is located just 63 light-years away – in the constellation of Pictor – and revolves around a giant star known as Beta Pictoris.

As the Inquisitr previously reported, Beta Pictoris b is a mammoth planet. It is about 13 times larger than Jupiter and its radius is almost 50% larger than that of our gas giant.

This qualifies Beta Pictoris b as super-Jupiter. Compared to the Earth, this exoplanet is a real monster, with a mass 3,000 times higher. Meanwhile, its mother star is about 1.8 times more massive than the Sun – and shines 10 times brighter.

According to the European Southern Observatory (ESO), Beta Pictoris b is relatively close to its star, orbiting around 1.3 billion kilometers. It's about the same distance that separates Saturn from the Sun.

The gas giant surrounds her mother star every 21 years. Along the way, the planet will drown under the powerful glow emitted by Beta Pictoris and will disappear completely from view – to finally emerge from the other side of the star a few years later.

The adventurous journey of Beta Pictoris around its flaming star has recently been captured in a series of captivating images taken by the very large ESO telescope (VLT), unveiled yesterday by the observatory. It is the same telescope that contributed to the discovery of the planet ten years ago.

Taken by the SPHERE instrument of the VLT, the snapshots cover a four-year period – and record the movement of the exoplanet from December 2014 to September 2018.

"The same scientific team [that discovered it] followed the exoplanet from late 2014 to late 2016, "explain ESO officials in the photo release. Beta Pictoris b then passed so close to the star's halo that no instrument could solve them. Nearly two years later, after appearing to blend in with the star's image, Beta Pictoris B has now emerged from the halo. This reappearance was again captured by SPHERE. "

The beautiful photos, in which the light of Beta Pictoris was blocked, were compiled in "an astonishing and unique period of time in the orbit of Beta Pictoris b", published the same day.

The remarkable thing about Beta Pictoris b is that this gas giant is one of the first planets discovered thanks to a new technique called direct imaging – and the closest-orbiting exoplanet ever spotted by this method.

Most of the exoplanets were discovered after astronomers had analyzed their effect on the brightness of their parent stars – a technique called the transit method, which consists of looking for luminosity drops of stars to locate potential planets passing by, Inquisitr recently reported – Beta Pictoris b "does not quite transit," notes the ESO.

The exoplanet was instead spotted after the VLT's NACO instrument took a direct shot of the gas giant. Its orbit was then unveiled by SPHERE, who highlighted its thermal signature and followed its passage around Beta Pictoris.

The dusty atmosphere surrounding the gas giant, combined with the enormous mass of the planet, means that Beta Pictoris cooks the surface of Beta Pictoris b by heating it to extreme temperatures of 1,500 degrees Celsius, more than 2,700 degrees Fahrenheit. The intense heat from the exoplanet allowed SPHERE to spy on the gas giant and discover its position relative to the star.

"These images are a remarkable achievement and herald a new era in one of the most exciting and challenging areas of astronomy: the discovery and characterization of exoplanets," concluded officials at the University of California. # 39; ESO.