Stargazers get first look at ‘super-jupiter’

Astronomers have made the first direct observations of a planet outside the solar system using a technique that combines the light from multiple telescopes.

The “super-jupiter”, 129 light years from Earth, was found to have a stormy atmosphere with swirling clouds of iron and silicate. Scientists used a technique called optical interferometry that allowed four telescopes to work as one to view the planet, known as HR8799E. Discovered in 2010 in the Pegasus constellation, it is unlike any planet in our solar system, as it is more massive and much younger.

Sylvestre Lacour, from the Paris Observatory in France and the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics, said: “Our observations suggest a ball of gas illuminated from the interior, with rays of warm light swirling through stormy patches of dark clouds.”