A new planet?, =X Options

[EmmalieV]

Last year astronomers had photographed a red speck orbiting a distant brown dwarf –or a failed star-outside the solar system. It was debated whether it was indeed a new planet or just another failed star. Now it is beyond doubt. With the help of new clearer images it has now been confirmed to be a giant planet orbiting the star. New images taken by the European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope in northern Chile conclude that the first planet found outside the solar system is about 5 times the size of Jupiter.
The planet, which is situated in the Hydra constellation, is nearly 230 light years from the earth, and is orbiting the failed star at a distance of about 5 billion miles that is approximately twice the distance from which Neptune orbits about the sun. Spectroscopic measurements suggests the presence of water vapor in its atmosphere leading to the belief that it is cold like a planet rather than hot like a star. The head of the observatory team Gael Chauvin, an astronomer at the European Southern Observatory, said, "Our new images show convincingly that this really is a planet, the first planet that has ever been imaged outside of our solar system". Another member Benjamin Zuckerman, who is the professor of physics and astronomy at UCLA said, “I’m more than 99 percent confident.

This is also the first time that a planet outside of our solar system has been detected far from a star or brown dwarf -- nearly twice as far as the distance between Neptune and the sun."
Gael Chauvin and his colleagues write in the paper, “This discovery offers new perspectives for our understanding of chemical and physical properties of planetary mass objects as well as their mechanisms of formation."

This new finding has been approved to be published in the future issues of Astronomy and Astrophysics, an astronomy journal.

What do you think about that.

[xquizit]

How exciting! I've always been fascinated by Astronomy and the contents of our universe outside our own galaxy. Very cool.

[angel-roh]

How exciting! I've always been fascinated by Astronomy and the contents of our universe outside our own galaxy. Very cool.

Same here, I was always fascinated by Astronomy and the contents of our universe outside our own galaxy. I actually wanted to study Astronomy when I grow up. But you have to be smart on math and science and I'm not really smart at that stuff. After seeing so many stars outside of my apartment. It got me thinking that I should become an Astronomy. I heard that all you do is watch the universe 24/7 and study them. Also calculate lots of stuff to solve problems. And they don't have presentations a lot unless they found something new or something happened in the universe.

Anyways that's cool that they think they found a new planet. I mean having a new planet is a cool! But I got confused with some part that says like. It looked like stars? So it's front of Neptune? So that means the new planet is warm and hot? Interesting though. Thanks for sharing. Wow, I should go to http://www.space.com more... I've been lagging because I had other stuff to do.