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Fomalhaut b: The first directly observed exoplanet

This artist's rendition shows a planet circling a star 16 times brighter than our sun. The planet is estimated to complete a full orbit around the star Fomalhaut in 872 years. For a planet three times the size of our Jupiter, it is much brighter than expected. One possibility is that it has a Saturn-like ring of ice and dust reflecting starlight (c) [video]: NASA, ESA, and G. Bacon (STScI); [photo]: ESA, NASA, and L. Calcada (ESO for STScI)

Tags: coronagraph, exoplanet, Fomalhaut, gravitational, Hubble, infrared, orbit, planet, star

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Fomalhaut b: The first directly observed exoplanet
— 13 November 2008 19:30 GMT | Astronomy

Scientists using NASA's Hubble telescope have taken the first visible-light snapshot of a planet orbiting another star. The images show the planet, named Fomalhaut b, estimated to be no more than three times Jupiter's mass, as a tiny point source of light orbiting the nearby, bright southern star Fomalhaut (HD 216956, Alpha Piscis Austrini), located 25 light-years (7.7 parsecs) away in the constellation Piscis Australis (Southern Fish). An immense debris disk about 21.5 billion miles across surrounds the star. Fomalhaut b is orbiting 1.8 billion miles inside the disk's sharp inner edge…