Astronomers using data from an automated 400 mm telescope in Antarctica have gathered new information about the planet β Pictoris b. The Antarctica Search for Transiting Extrasolar Planets (ASTEP), located at the French-Italian Concordia station, monitored the star β Pictoris continuously for nearly seven months in order to detect variability that could be linked to the transit of the Hill sphere of its planet, β Pictoris b.

The study, “The δ Scuti pulsations of β Pictoris as observed by ASTEP from Antarctica,” was published in Astronomy & Astrophysics. The work was supported by the Nexus for Exoplanet System Science (NExSS). NExSS is a NASA research coordination network supported in part by the NASA Astrobiology Program. This program element is shared between NASA’s Planetary Science Division (PSD) and the Astrophysics Division.