Fact Sheet
Distant Planet?
Astronomers with the Gemini Observatory say they may have captured the first picture of a planet orbiting another Sun-like star. The star, 1RXS
J160929.1-210524, is about 500 light-years away, and is much younger the Sun. The possible planet, which is the small dot at the top of the image, is about eight times as massive as Jupiter, the largest planet in our own solar system. The planet appears to be about 330 times farther from the star than Earth is from the Sun, or about 10 times farther than the most-distant planet, Neptune. University of Toronto astronomers used adaptive optics, a technology that compensates for the blurring effect of Earth's atmosphere, to obtain the image with the Gemini North Telescope. [Gemini Observatory]
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