Astronomers Get Picture of Nearby Exoplanet

The Bad Astronomer writes "While nearly a thousand planets are known to orbit other stars, getting direct pictures of them is extremely difficult due to the glare from their host stars. Fewer than a dozen images of exoplanets exist. However, we can now add one more to the list: Kappa Andromedae b, or Kap And b for short. It's about 170 light years away, and orbits Kappa And, a massive star bright enough to see with the naked eye. One hitch: its mass puts it right at the upper limit for a planet, and it may edge into brown dwarf territory. Further observations are needed to pin its mass down."

Comments

Re:Kappa Andromedae

[BattleApple]

Even "K And b" seems better to me.. which is what is actually printed in the article. (Not Kap And B)

Re:why they are different?

[mcgrew]

The answer is in TFA. It isn't just heat, but fusion. At 13-14 times Jupiter's mass, there is a nuclear burn, but only with deuterium and it doesn't burn long. Brown Dwarfs are also called "failed stars". In short, it's a big planet that started fusing deuterium until the deuterium ran out.