"That's a little ways away, I'm afraid," Jayawardhana says. He was part of a team that in September announced yet another image of what it claims is a planet at a nearby star.īut astronomers have not found what they would dearly like to see: an earth-like planet around a sun-like star. "Not only is it exciting just because we have pictures for the first time, but also because these pictures are revealing an entirely new population of planets that were not accessible to the previously used method for planet detection," says Ray Jayawardhana, an astronomer at the University of Toronto. And that makes this solar system somewhat like our own - though the star and its planets are much younger than our 5 billion-year-old solar system. Their orbits aren't too different from the orbits of our own outermost planets. These three planets in this system also appear to be gas giants, and all are at least five times bigger than Jupiter. The results include four new discoveries that are consistent with planets of similar masses to Earth, published today in. Meanwhile, an international team of astronomers say they've seen not just a single planet, but a small solar system around a star called HR 8799 (The name might sound like a personnel form, because astronomers sometimes can't decide whether to be scientific or romantic.) Kepler Telescope Glimpses Population of Free-Floating Planets Tantalizing evidence has been uncovered for a mysterious population of 'free-floating' planets, planets that may be alone in deep space, unbound to any host star. It's more than 100 times farther from its star than Earth is from the sun. The planet, dubbed Fomalhaut b, is a gas giant that is much bigger than Jupiter and apparently is surrounded by rings of its own. Paul Kalas of the University of California, Berkeley, suspects the planet is shepherding the star's massive gas ring and keeping it organized, much the way "shepherd moons" circle the rings of Saturn and keep them tidy. One involves a planet that appears to be orbiting just inside a giant ring of gas that encircles a star known as Fomalhaut, a mere 25 light-years from Earth. Science Express published two of the new finds online Thursday. A release of early observations by the 10 billion telescope reveals galaxies, planets, and stars in unprecedented detail. There have been three reports in the past two months purporting to show images of planets in solar systems around nearby stars. But the most recent planet discoveries are actual photo-ops.įor the first time, scientists have produced images of multiple planets orbiting a star other than our own sun. Tantalising evidence has been uncovered for a mysterious population of free-floating planets which may be alone in deep space, unbound to any host star. Over the past decade, more than 300 otherworldly worlds have been detected indirectly - typically their gravitational pull makes their host-stars wobble and astronomers can pick up that wobble. The two yellow specs in the orbit path show how much the planet has moved between 20.Ĭourtesy Paul Kalas, University of California, BerkeleyĪstronomers are getting their first real glimpses of planets in orbit around distant stars. Formalhaut b sits in a vast dust belt orbiting its star.
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