First Images of a Planet Orbiting Another Stars

We known their were planets orbiting stars other then our own for a while, and have even been able to detect a few hundred of them, but we have never been able to take a picture of the planets. That is, until now. For the first time, we have taken a picture of a planet orbiting another star. It does not look like much, just a small blurry dot, but it is a historic achievement. Soon after the first was taken (which is the first one imaged below) a second one as well. Their is even word of a third currently being reviewed for confirmation.

My understanding is that the lines emanating from the black center are image falsehoods. The red dust ring is real. The blacked out area is where the star is, but it is blacked out in order to see the surrounding dust and the planet. The second is easier to understand.

Scroll down, look at the pictures, and be amazed.


http://blogs.discovermagazine.com
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2008/11/13/huge-exoplanet-news-items-pictures

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The first picture is from Hubble. Ready? Here it is:

Do you see it? That tiny spark, that wee blip of light? It may not look like much, but it is in fact a normal planet orbiting a normal star, 250 trillion kilometers from Earth.

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This is huge news.

And it gets even huger. Because there’s more:

That image is the first to directly show two planets orbiting another star! It’s a near-infrared image using the giant Gemini North 8 meter telescope. Like in the Hubble image, the star’s light has been blocked, allowing the two planets to be seen (labeled b and c).

The star is called HR 8799. It’s a bit more massive (1.5 times) and more luminous (5x) than the Sun, and lies about 130 light years from Earth. The planets in this picture orbit it at distances of 6 billion km (3.6 billion miles) and 10.5 billion km (6.3 billion miles). A third planet, not seen in this image but discovered later using the Keck 10 meter telescope, orbits the star closer in at a distance of 3.8 billion km (2.3 billion miles).

So there it is. The first ever family portrait of a planetary system.

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