spacetoday.net: Astronomers take first image of planet around Sun-like star

Astronomers take first image of planet around Sun-like star

Posted: Tue, Sep 16, 2008, 8:26 AM ET (1226 GMT)
Exoplanet around 1RXS J160929.1-210524 (Gemini Obs.)

For the first time astronomers have directly imaged an extrasolar planet orbiting a star like our own Sun. A team from the University of Toronto used the Gemini North telescope in Hawaii to detect the planet orbiting the star 1RXS J160929.1-210524, about 500 light-years from the Earth. The planet has an estimated mass eight times that of Jupiter and is 330 astronomical units from the star, an unusually large distance than enabled astronomers to pick out the planet from the glare of its star. How such a large planet got to be so far from its star is a mystery to astronomers.