For the holidays, we’re bringing you eight examples of directly-imaged light from planets beyond our solar system.
For the holidays, we’re bringing you eight examples of light from real planets beyond our solar system. These real images show exoplanets light-years (aka trillions of miles) away from Earth. Exoplanets are far away, and they are millions of times dimmer than the stars they orbit. So, unsurprisingly, taking pictures of them the same way you’d take pictures of, say Jupiter or Venus, is exceedingly hard. But new techniques and rapidly-advancing technology are making it happen.
HR 8799 – 129 light-years from Earth
Four giants twirl around their star in a slow dance over eight years of observation. Each moving dot is a gas giant planet more massive than Jupiter; the innermost planet takes 40 years to orbit its star, and the furthest takes 400 years! The wonder of seeing another star system 129 light-years away hasn’t faded since the images were first taken. The black circle in the center of the image is from a coronagraph, which purposely blocks the light of the young star to reveal the much fainter light from the planets. The HR 8799 system can be found in the constellation Pegasus.
Beta Pictoris b – 63 light-years from Earth
One of our best views of an exoplanet moving in its orbit around a distant star. Beta Pictoris b is a massive planet about 63 light-years away, orbiting the second-brightest star in the constellation Pictoris. This gas giant is about 10 times more massive than Jupiter, and passes through a bright ring of dust and debris as it circles its star. A series of images captured between November 2013 to April 2015 shows the exoplanet as it moves through 1.5 years of its 22-year orbital period. The planet is nearly 100,000 times fainter than its star; a device inside the telescope called a coronagraph blocks the light of star Beta Pictoris so the planet is visible.
51 Eridani b – 97 light-years from Earth
The bright moving spot is 51 Eridani b, the most Jupiter-like exoplanet ever imaged, about 100 light-years from Earth. A series of images taken over three years, beginning December 2014, shows a small fraction of this gas planet’s 41-year orbit around its Sun-like star. 51 Eridani b is still young enough that it glows from the heat of its birth. The striking young Jupiter hints at how our own Jupiter may have formed long ago.
Fomalhaut b – 25 light-years from Earth
A tiny dot begins its long journey around its bright star. Though it’s almost too small to see next to the “eye of Sauron,” Fomalhaut b is a planet almost twice Jupiter’s size. It’s also one of the few planets with a name chosen by the public– Dagon, a Semitic deity that’s half man and half fish. The illusion of a giant eye is created by the Hubble Space Telescope; the blue and white streaks are scattered starlight, reflected by its coronagraph. Dagon is only 25 light-years away from Earth, and takes 872 years orbit its star. This video shows its orbit from 2004 to 2012.
HIP 65426b – 385 light-years from Earth
Hot, clouded with dust, and really, really big. The gas giant HIP 65426b, discovered using the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope, is believed to be between six and 12 times the mass of Jupiter. It has a thickly clouded atmosphere and a searing temperature of 1,800 to 2,500 degrees Fahrenheit (1,000 to 1,400 degrees Celsius), and it orbits a hot, young star. Just how the planet formed is a puzzle. One possibility is that it’s really a failed star, its domineering companion – and now its host star – preventing it from gathering sufficient mass. In this image, the starlight is blocked out so the light from its giant companion can be seen.
LkCa15 – 450 light-years from Earth
Like a baby photo, the brightly colored lights show infant planets in the making. There are 450 light-years between Earth and LkCa15, a young star with a doughnut-shaped protoplanetary disk around it, also known as a birthplace for planets. This composite image of the young star system LkCa15 is the first photo of several planets being formed. Protoplanetary disks form around young stars using the debris left over from the star’s formation. Though scientists don’t know for certain, it’s theorized that planets then form from this spinning disk of gas and dust around the young star. The color in this image has been added afterwards.
