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First Image Of Planet-Like Body Orbiting A Star

Posted by timothy on from the won't-be-the-last dept.

deglr6328 writes "The Gemini North Telescope has, for the first time, directly imaged a planet like body orbiting a star. The object is a brown dwarf, 55 to 78 times the mass of planet Jupiter and 14 AU distant from its parent star 15 Sge. It was imaged using adaptive optics(see also here) that correct for the blurring effect of the atmosphere using deformable mirrors. Cool!"

1 of 176 comments (clear)

  1. Tell me.... by moosesocks · · Score: 0, Redundant

    Aren't we a planet (along with a handful of others) orbiting a star (in our case, the Sun??

    Okay okay.... we're A planet, I suppose some may say that since we are an ACTUAL planet, "planet-like doesn't really apply here. What about pluto? Most would say it's definitely not a planet, but pretty darn close, making it "planet-like".

    We could add another picture to the list by launching a giant mirror into space, so we can look back upon ourselves through it...

    --
    -- If you try to fail and succeed, which have you done? - Uli's moose