September 15, 2008 - ScienceNews
The image is possibly the first of an extrasolar planet orbiting a normal star, but some of its features counter current thinking.
After years of searching, astronomers may finally have recorded the first image of a planet orbiting a sunlike star beyond the solar system. The body, about eight times Jupiter’s mass, lies exceptionally far from its presumed parent star — roughly 11 times Neptune’s average distance from the sun.
...
He and his colleagues found the new planet earlier this year by using a special optics system on the Gemini North telescope atop Hawaii’s Mauna Kea. The team scoured the vicinity of some 85 stars belonging to the Upper Scorpius association. Stars in this grouping lie 500 light-years from Earth and are only about 5 million years old. The sun, by comparison, is 4.56 billion years old.
...