Distant gas giants caught on camera
Multiple planets directly observed around a Sun-like star
Marking an important step towards studying potentially habitable planets, astronomers have taken the first ever direct image of a multiple planet system around a Sun-like star, using the ESO’s Very Large Telescope in Chile.
By taking a series of images with a coronograph, which blocks out the central star’s light, astronomers picked out the planets as they moved relative to the static background stars. “Even though astronomers have indirectly detected thousands of planets in our Galaxy, only a tiny fraction of these exoplanets have been imaged directly,” says Matthew Kenworthy from Leiden University, who helped conduct the study.
Though the planets are unlikely to host life – they’re gas giants many times further out from their star than Pluto is from our Sun – such direct imaging will be an important tool for assessing the habitability of more promising worlds. www.eso.org