November 13, 2008 - ScienceNews.org
They’ve got the whole world in their hands. Four worlds, actually.
Two teams of extrasolar planet-hunters report that they have achieved a long-sought milestone: obtaining the first undisputed images of planets orbiting stars beyond the solar system.
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One of the teams, led by Christian Marois of the Herzberg Institute of Astrophysics in Victoria, Canada, used the Gemini North and Keck 2 telescopes atop Hawaii’s Mauna Kea to image the region around a massive star called HR 8799. Marois was already carrying a tightly held secret when he boarded an airplane in July to Mauna Kea. Images his team had taken with Gemini North nine months earlier had revealed a faint point of light — a possible planet — near HR 8799, which lies about 130 light-years from Earth.
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