Astronomers spot planet orbiting star
Scientists have snapped the first images of a planet outside our solar system that is orbiting a star very much like the sun.
Nearly all of the roughly 300 so-called extrasolar planets discovered to date have been detected using indirect methods such as changes observed in a star when a planet orbits directly in front of it from the perspective of earth.
They say the planet is about the size of Jupiter, but has eight times the mass and is much hotter.
Both planet and star - known as 1RXS J160929.1-210524 - are located in our Milky Way galaxy about 500 light years from earth - 5000 trillion kilometres.
"It's always been a goal to take a picture of a planet around another star. The challenge, of course, is that planets are much, much fainter than stars," says team leader Professor Ray Jayawardhana of the University of Toronto.
Large and distant
Of all known extrasolar planets, this one is orbiting the furthest from its star. It is located roughly 11 times further from its star than Neptune - the outermost planet in our solar system - is located from our sun, say the astronomers.
They say they are working to confirm that the planet is indeed orbiting this star as it appears, but it may take up to two years to get that data.
"The star is very typical. It's like the sun, just younger. But the planet is quite unusual. It's on the high end of the mass of the extrasolar planets found so far. And it's also very far away from its star," says Jayawardhana.
Before this, the only planets or similar objects that have been directly imaged outside of the solar system were either free-floating in space and not orbiting a star, or orbiting a brown dwarf, a failed star that did not reach the mass necessary to spark the nuclear fusion typical of a star.
Jayawardhana says the scientists have evidence of water and carbon monoxide in the planet's atmosphere.
But he adds that the planet may not be a good candidate for extraterrestrial life because it appears to be a gas giant, a type of planet inhospitable to life, and because it is too young.
The star is considered a newborn, forming an estimated 5 million years ago. Our sun formed 4.5 billion years ago.