Saturday, November 15, 2008

New possible extrasolar planet imaged

Here is a photo of a possible imaged planet beyond our solar system. Time will tell whether it is really called a planet (like a big Jupiter) or very small dwarf star.

photo of Fomalhaut b
Credit: NASA, ESA, P. Kalas, J. Graham, E. Chiang, E. Kite (Univ. California, Berkeley),
M. Clampin (NASA/Goddard), M. Fitzgerald (Lawrence Livermore NL),
K. Stapelfeldt, J. Krist (NASA/JPL)

http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap081114.html

Fomalhaut is a bright, young, star, a short 25 light-years from planet Earth in the direction of the constellation Piscis Austrinus. The Hubble data represent the first visible-light image of a planet circling another star.

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