For the first time, a Sun-like star has been detected with a planet orbiting it.
Most exoplanets detected so far are orbiting faint, small brown dwarfs, thus making the planet easier to detect. This new planet has a mass around eight times that of Jupiter, and orbits at 330 Astronomical Units (AU - 1 Astronomical Unit is the distance from the Earth to our Sun). This can be compared with Neptune in our Solar System, which orbits the Sun at 30 AU.
The three researchers, from the University of Toronto, imaged the star, 1RXS J160929.1-210524, using the Gemini North telescope on Mauna Kea in Hawaii.
Lead author David Lafreniere said, 'The star and its companion lie about 500 light-years from Earth. This is the first time we have directly seen a planetary mass object in a likely orbit around a star like our Sun. If we confirm that this object is
indeed gravitationally tied to the star, it will be a major step forward."
Finding a planetary-mass companion so far from its parent star came as a surprise to the astronomers, and poses a challenge to theories of star and planet formation.
Although the object resembles Jupiter in size, it is much hotter with a temperature of around 1800 Kelvin.
This discovery comes as part of a survey of around 85 stars in the Upper Scorpius association - a group of young stars formed about five million years ago.
Read the Lafreniere paper here
