An international team of astronomers shot the very first direct-image of a young, sun-like star accompanied by two giant exoplanets.
On this image you can see the two newly imaged exoplanets orbiting their host star at a considerable distance, respectively 160 and 320 times the distance from Sun to Earth. - Image Credit: ESO/Bohn et al.
An international team of astronomers led by Dutch astronomer Alexander Bohn shot the very first direct-image of a young, sun-like star accompanied by two giant exoplanets using the Very Large Telescope from the European Southern Observatory (ESO) in Chile. Up until now, astronomers had never directly observed more than one world orbiting a star similar to our Sun. The exiting results have been published in the journal The Astrophysical Journal Letters.
In a NOVA press release, Alexander Bohn, PhD student at Leiden University and lead author of the study, stated that their observation forms a snapshot of a planetary system somewhat similar to our solar system, but at as it was at a much earlier stage.
Over the years, astronomers have indirectly detected several thousands of planets in our Milky Way Galaxy, although only a fraction of these exoplanets has been directly imaged. Co-author Matthew Kenworthy (Leiden University) suggested that direct images with two or more exoplanets orbiting the same star are even rarer. According to him, this has only been accomplished twice so far, and both were distinctly different from our Sun.
The two newly observed planets can be seen in the new image as two bright points of light at a considerable distance from their parent star TYC 8998-760-1. Incidentally, this star is only seventeen million years old and is located approximately three hundred light-years from Earth toward the southern constellation Musca. By taking different pictures at different times, the team was able to distinguish the two planets from the background stars.
As mentioned earlier, the two gas giants orbit their parent star at considerable distances respectively 160 and 320 times the distance from Sun to Earth. They are located much further away from their host star than, for example, Jupiter (located at five times the distance from Earth to the Sun) and Saturn (located at ten times the distance from Earth to the Sun). Furthermore, both exoplanets are much more massive than those in our own solar system. The outer exoplanet has six times the mass of Jupiter, and the inner exoplanet has a humongous fourteen times as much mass.
The astronomers used the internationally developed SPHERE instrument on the Very Large Telescope in the Chilean Atacama Desert. The instrument shields the light from the host star using a so-called coronagraph, making the exoplanets visible. This method principally works for young, warm planets that glow brightly in infrared light.
In future research, the team wants to investigate whether the planets originated at the current distances from their host star or whether they migrated from elsewhere.
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