The photo was originally taken in 2008 by David Lafreniere and collaborators working at the Gemini Observatory. Scientists weren’t sure about it being an orbiting planet until now, however. New observations have shown that the planet follows an orbit around the star 300 times larger than Earth’s orbit.
The planet has eight times the mass of Jupiter, and has a much higher temperature: 1482C as opposed to the -110C of the biggest planet in our solar system. Scientists believe this temperature is a product of the age of this star system, much younger than ours.
Far from throwing any light in planetary theories, this discovery challenges the current model. Lafreniere and his colleagues think the orbit is too large for the planet to form by core accretion. If that was the case, then the star system could be much older than is actual age.
Or maybe… maybe that’s not a planet. Cue in the suspense music. [Gemini]
olearymo
Thursday, July 1, 2010 at 8:53 AMWow.
Possibly the coolest thing I’ve ever seen on Gizmodo.
Tom Killingbeck
Thursday, July 1, 2010 at 9:21 AM“That’s no planet. It’s a space station.”
Jester
Thursday, July 1, 2010 at 9:57 AMCOTW, I lol’d!!
Zac
Thursday, July 1, 2010 at 9:36 AMCobalt! It will lead us to Caprica!
Dave
Thursday, July 1, 2010 at 9:59 AMThat is pretty cool, but it isn’t the first exo-planet that has had it’s picture taken. It is, however, the first that has been imaged from the arth itself rather than a space-based satellite. Given the bad things our atmosphere does to images taken on the ground, this is really cool.
More info here: http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2010/06/30/another-direct-picture-of-a-planet-orbiting-an-alien-star-confirmed/#more-18231
Troy MacDonald
Thursday, July 1, 2010 at 3:49 PMI must be a bit confused, but how its this better than pretty much all of the amazing pics (from the other side of the galaxy etc) on
http://hubblesite.org/gallery/
?
Solar System
Wednesday, December 22, 2010 at 10:46 PMThe first visible light image of an extra solar planet was taken by the Hubble telescope in November 2008. I believe this is the first infra red image.