Giant exoplanet imaged directly using infrared light

Using an infrared camera, astronomers at the University of Montreal have discovered and directly imaged GU Psc b, a planet with a mass 10 times greater than Jupiter’s and orbiting its star at 2,000 times the distance between Earth and our sun. This very rare find will encourage scientists to start looking for exoplanets in places where, thus far, they hadn’t even thought to look.

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I approve.

“Current theories predict that the vast majority of planets orbit their star at a distance up to 100 astronomical units (AU) – that is to say, one hundred times the distance between Earth and our sun.”

Current observations by the Kepler spacecraft show that the majority of planets orbit their star at a distance less than 1 AU.