The First Image of an Extra Solar Planet
Explanation:
It's the faint red object, not the bright white one
that might be a historic find.
The white object is surely a
brown dwarf star.
Quite possibly, however, the red object is the
first direct image of a
planet beyond our
Solar System.
The intriguing possibility was first reported last year,
but many astronomers weren't then convinced that the
"planet" was not just a background star.
Earlier this year, the
2M1207 star system was imaged twice more
in an effort to resolve the issue.
To the delight of the
scientific team, the objects kept the same separation,
indicating that they are
gravitationally bound.
The faint red object 2M1207b is therefore 100 times fainter,
intrinsically, than the bright white brown dwarf 2M1207b -- a
characteristic well explained by a planet roughly
five times the mass of
Jupiter.
The
discovery -
still subject to further conformation - is considered
a step toward the more ambitious goal of imaging
Earth-like planets orbiting distant stars.
The
above image was taken with the high-resolution adaptive-optic
NaCo
camera attached to the 8-meter
Very Large Telescope Yepun in
Chile.
Authors & editors:
Robert Nemiroff
(MTU) &
Jerry Bonnell
(USRA)
NASA Web Site Statements, Warnings,
and Disclaimers
NASA Official: Jay Norris.
Specific
rights apply.
A service of:
LHEA at
NASA /
GSFC
& Michigan Tech. U.
