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"First directly imaged extrasolar planet?

This image may not be historic, if finally the authors show to be right: the big star called 1RXS J160929.1-210524. Of course, no name yet, but is a young star, much like our Sun is about 500 light years away, that is, just around the corner, astronomically speaking, a light year is 9.4 trillion miles, almost nothing.

However, around has an object that is not nothing but a planet , say three astrophysicists at the University of Toronto. A big world, eight times larger than Jupiter, which is separated from the star 330 times the distance that separates us from our sun (150 million miles ... multiplied by that number).

Thanks to a new telescope

"It's the first time we've been able to directly observe a planetary mass object in orbit around a star like our sun," said David Lafrenière, an author, who has sent this paper to the Astrophysical Journal magazine. The image is the result of observations carried out with the Gemini Observatory on Mauna Kea in Hawaii.

We are therefore in the beginning of something that can be accepted or rejected. But speculation is tempting. Until now, extrasolar planets had been detected were worlds as large or larger than this object, but with the characteristic brown dwarfs orbiting stars: fairly moribund and little bright, making it easier to detect planetary their subjects. In other cases, orphan planets had been discovered, Sunless accompany them. Diversity

worlds

But this world and its star as a surprise . "This finding is not only a reminder of the diversity of worlds out there that does not wait," said Ray Jayawardhana, one of the authors. "It also tells us that nature has more than one way to produce planetary companions around ordinary stars."

With one exception, these experts can be wrong. Although the data show that the planet is a cold body and a relatively small mass , and that is the same distance from us than what separates us from that star, will take about two years verify whether the world is a prisoner by the gravity of the sun in a stable orbit. "It would be premature now to say that the object is definitely orbiting the star, but the evidence is pretty strong," stated Lafrenière.