Slashdot Mirror
Lowest Mass Exoplanet Ever Directly Imaged. Probably.
The Bad Astronomer writes "Astronomers announced today that they have taken a direct image of the lowest mass exoplanet ever seen. HD 95086 b has a mass about 4 to 5 times that of Jupiter, and orbits a star 300 light years away that is slightly more massive and hotter than the Sun. The planet is not 100% confirmed, but it appears very likely to be real. If so, it's a hot gas giant, still cooling from its formation less than 20 million years ago. The picture, taken in the infrared, clearly shows the planet, making it one of fewer than a dozen such planets seen in actual telescopic images."
She can be directly imaged from 300 light years away.
I'm not an expert, so ignore me if one shows up; but my suspicion would be that they cool down enough that we can't see them anymore: You'd get a lot of heat, initially, when the planet coalesces; but if it isn't massive enough to ignite fusion and become a star, it'll just keep bleeding radiation into space until it reaches whatever equilibrium temperature the intensity and location of its local star provide for. As they get colder, their output gets weaker, until it gets to the point where our instruments are insufficiently sensitive to distinguish it from the background(unless it passes in front of its star, which has allowed us to indirectly infer the existence of smaller objects that we can't see directly).