[9] The orbit of the planet is well aligned to the rotation of the parent star and debris disk, with misalignment measured to be 3±5 degrees in 2020.

[10] In 2014, the rotation period of Beta Pictoris b was calculated from the broadening of its carbon monoxide infrared absorption line.

[3] The planet was discovered on November 18, 2008 by Anne-Marie Lagrange et al., using the NACO instrument on the Very Large Telescope at Cerro Paranal in northern Chile.

A re-reduction of the data in 2008 using modern image processing tools revealed the faint point source now known to be a planet.

Follow-up observations performed in late 2009 and early 2010 using the same instrument recovered and confirmed the planet, but on the opposite side of the star.

Observations performed in late 2010 and early 2011 allowed scientists to establish an inclination angle of the planet's orbit of 88.5 degrees, nearly edge-on.

A second study, published in September 2013,[18] provided a new detection at 3.1 μm obtained at the Gemini Observatory along with a reanalysis of previous data.

This fit corresponds to a planet radius of 1.65 times that of Jupiter, arguing that Beta Pictoris b may be younger than its host star (finished forming at 5 Ma).

[1] Beta Pictoris b has been found to have a obliquity likely misaligned by a 2024 study, based on a wide range of simulations together with published measurements.

[21] Future observations by the James Webb Space Telescope will measure the planet's obliquity, something never made before in an extrasolar multiplanetary system.