THEY might resemble drips of paint, but these red dots are in fact an alien solar system – the first time planets have been pictured orbiting their star.
Taking pictures of exoplanets is tricky. Since they are so much dimmer than their stars, most alien worlds we know about were discovered indirectly.
Christian Marois of the Herzberg Institute of Astrophysics in Victoria, British Columbia, and colleagues used the Keck and Gemini telescopes in Hawaii to capture the planets in action.
The speckled central area is residual light from the star HR 8799, 130 light years away. The planets themselves weigh an…