The Very Large Telescope (ESO VLT) of the Southern European Observatory has captured the world’s first image: the first image of two giant exoplanets orbiting a young ‘Sun-like’ star 300 light-years from ours. Photography could provide important information about the formation of our own solar system.
The groundbreaking image, which is discussed in detail on the ESO website, is described as “a snapshot of an environment that is very similar to our Solar System, but at a much earlier stage in its evolution.”
As ESO explains, direct observations of exoplanets are extremely rare but incredibly important in the search for planets like ours that could support life. Taking pictures of two exoplanets around the same star is even more remarkable, and capturing a picture of two planets orbiting a Sun-like star is a unique achievement – the world’s first.
Here is the wide-angle image of the solar system in question:
And here is a closer harvest:
The photograph was made possible using the SPHERE instrument of the Very Large Telescope, which uses a coronagraph to block the bright light emitted by the star, allowing astronomers to detect and observe the much fainter planets around them.
The image shows a star very similar to our own Sun, only much younger, in the upper left corner. The two exoplanets, gas giants that are several times larger than Jupiter, are the two bright dots in the center and at the bottom right of the image.
Remarkably, both planets are very far from their star: one is orbiting at 160 times the Earth-Sun distance, and the other at approximately 320 times the Earth-Sun distance. But while this image does not show a system similar to ours today, scientists hope that images like this can shed some light on the early history of our solar system. For the rest of us, they are amazing to see and at least try to understand.
For more information, see the explanatory video at the top, head to the ESO blog, or read the full research paper on this image at The letters of the astrophysical journal.
(via DPReview)
Image credits: All photos from ESO / Bohn et al.
