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"  Here it is: the first image from the long-time-coming Gemini Planet Imager (GPI). That dot you can clearly see is Beta Pictoris b, a young planet that orbits a star about 63 light years from Earth. GPI, which has been in development for about a decade, is an instrument used on the Gemini South telescope in Chile. (As the name would suggest, the Gemini Observatory comprises a pair of telescopes, each one measuring more than 26 feet across.) Its purpose is to give astronomers a view of young planets orbiting faraway stars. Beta Pictoris b, for example, is just 10 million years old, making it a baby on the cosmic time scale. (Earth, at 4.5 billion years old, is more middle-aged.) Infrared light is the key to GPI&amp;#039;s crisp imagery. Young planets are still hot, and so shine brightly in this part of the spectrum, while stars tend to be dimmer in infrared. That helps a telescope like GPI to filter out the intense light of the star and spot the planet.  GPI also has a polarization mode, meaning it can filter out unpolarized light and show only polarized. That matters because it&amp;#039;s another way to filter out starlight, which is unpolarized. In the image below from GPI, the right side shows only polarized light, bringing the disc of dust around a young star into clearer view. While GPI didn&amp;#039;t discover Beta Pictoris b, it might turn up new exoplanets as it turns its eye to study hundreds of young stars. And the tool will tell astronomers a lot more about the planets they&amp;#039;ve already found. For example, GPI can take a full spectrum of a planet, which tells scientists what its atmosphere is made of as well as its temperature. That could also be true for closer objects. GPI scientists released this image comparing its view of Jupiter&amp;#039;s moon Europa (right) to a composite map made by satellites that have flown by the planet (left). Europa is close enough that GPI could help scientists to track changes on its surface.  "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.popularmechanics.com/space/telescopes/a9935/the-first-picture-from-a-new-planet-hunter-16361770/>