Astronomers report a planet observed "directly"
The planet (on the left) is 5 times larger than Jupiter
Scientists report that they have managed to photograph a planet outside the solar system. A group at the European Southern Observatory says the red object is the first photograph (although two other groups have claimed this in the past month) of a planet orbiting another star.
The diameter of the planet, named 2M1207B is 5 times that of Jupiter and it orbits its sun at twice the distance that Neptune orbits our sun.
The parent star of this planet is over 200 light-years away in the southern constellation Hydra.
As mentioned, these days there is a competition between astronomers to secure their record as the first to observe a direct image of an alien planet.
When the group from the European Observatory published the image for the first time in September 2004, a debate arose about the question of whether the star and the planet were gravitationally bound, but follow-up photographs taken at the very large telescope facility in Chile showed that the two objects were moving together. "Our picture is quite convincing," said Jill Chaubin, an astronomer at the European Southern Observatory. "This is really a planet - the first planet ever photographed outside our solar system." added
