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 s