Astronomers image planet orbiting Sun-like star
At least, that's what we think it is. Further study will tell us for sure. The dot near the top left of the picture is believed to be the first photograph of a planet orbiting any other star than our sun.
More than 300 planets (called exolanets) have been discovered orbiting other stars, but we haven't been able to actually see or photograph them. Another photograph several years ago produced a tiny, almost invisible dot that might be a planet; but it is now thought to be something in the background.
At least a year or two of additional observations will be necessary to make certain this new "planet" is actually in orbit around the star, and not just something in the background, too. At interstellar distances like this, it's not easy to be sure.
The other known exoplanets have been discovered by several different methods; most of them by measuring the wobbles of their parent stars as they move through space. A rhythmic back-and-forth element in a star's motion indicates the gravitational pull of a companion. Most likely a planet.But we've never actually seen them before.
Photographing these planets is incredibly difficult, because they tend to be close to their stars, and the stars are so much brighter than the planets. This one -- if it turns out to really be a planet -- is at least 330 times farther from its star than earth is from our sun. This separation made it easier to photograph than most.
This newly discovered planet is estimated to be eight times more massive (think heavier) than Jupiter, or 2,500 times more massive than earth. We don't have the technology yet to even detect exoplanets earth's size, much less image them; but this should change soon. In the next five to ten years, we should have images of many earth-size planets, photographed by new space telescopes and other new technologies. But we'll have to wait and see.
This newly discovered planet appears to orbit a young star that's slightly less massive than the Sun and about 500 light years away from us.It is so far from its parent star that it creates questions about our understanding of the ways planets form. This is another exciting thing for scientists, because they look for new questions to answer. As I've said before, science is not about knowing everything. It is about learning new things.
Science thrives on questions.
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