Probably the very first photograph of an Earth-like planet was released a couple of days ago. This is the first time scientists have managed to photograph an exoplanet orbiting a Sun-like star. Although this information is not 100% sure yet, we can say this is a great breakthrough in astronomy.

The exoplanet (left corner) was photographed with the adaptive Gemini telescope of Hawaii. The big bright star in the middle is the one exoplanet is orbiting. Scientists call this star as a “mother star”. So far scientists have managed to photograph only wandering exoplanets, not those who orbit a star. In this picture the star is about the size of our own Sun, but this star is much younger.

The first photographed exoplanet is simply huge

The mass of the photographed exoplanet is staggering. This distant Earth-like planet is about eight times bigger than Jupiter, which is already very big. The exoplanet is located pretty far from its mother star. The distance from the exoplanet to the mother star is 330 AU (Astronomical Units), which is 330 times the distance from Earth to the Sun. The exoplanet is located 500 light years away from the Earth.

Scientists are not sure yet if the exoplanet is orbiting the star. It might be a wandering planet, just passing by the star, but the probability for this is very small. Future measurements will confirm this, but most likely this exoplanet orbits the mother star.

This recently photographed exoplanet would not be suitable for human beings, because the temperature on the planet is estimated to be 1500 centigrades.

Source [Gemini]