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Scientists directly observe three distant planets, notice similarities to our solar system

Fomalhaut-dust-ring-three-planets.jpg
Two different teams of scientists have been able to directly observe distant planets — something that's never been done before. Christian Marois, the leader of a team at the Herzberg Institute of Astrophysics in Victoria, British Columbia tracked three planets circling a star in the Pegasus system known as HR 8799, a whopping 130 light years away. The second team, led by Paul Kalas of UC Berkeley, spotted a planet orbiting Fomalhaut (pictured above — Eye of Sauron, anyone?), a star 25 light years from Earth.

Claims of "directly" observing planets have been made before, and are usually quickly argued down. Both of these sightings, however, show orbital trajectories mapped out over several photographs that took years to collect. What's more, the teams think the distant stars share similarities with ours when it comes to orbiting bodies. The three around HR 8799 are all several times the size of Jupiter, though mirror the makeup of our solar system, with larger planets forming the majority of the outer orbiting belt.

That begs the question: Are there smaller planets that we can't see orbiting the star more closely? There's a chance there is, though both stars are far younger than our own so who knows if any of the planets support life.

Via the International Herald Tribune and Ars Technica

         
Comments

Isn't Fomalhaut where the Lovecraftian god Cthugha come from? Hmmm,... Along with the Discovery of an Unknown Mountain range in the Antarctic ( Mountains of Madness???) the Old one are on their way.

That really is a unique pic.. what is it exactly? Besides the eye of sauron..

@COOLPRODUCTS

It's a picture taken by the Hubble Space Telescope, of a dust ring surrounding the star Fomalhaut. Fomalhaut is in the center of this image, but you can't see it. What can be seen is the planet orbiting the star. See this link for a picture identifying both star and planet:
http://hubblesite.org/newscenter/archive/releases/2008/39/image/a/format/web_print/

If you like the picture, it can be downloaded in high resolution from this page:
http://hubblesite.org/newscenter/archive/releases/2008/39/image/b/

I searched with my telsecopes and i see stuff on mars that looks like ruins from a civilization, we should investigate more on the moon, instead of pretending we have been there

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