Pictured: First glimpse of an alien planet in orbit around a sun just like ours



Scientists have snapped the first picture of a planet outside our solar system orbiting a star similar to the sun.

The distant world is giant and has about eight times the mass of Jupiter. It lies far out from its star about 330 times the distance of the Earth from the Sun.

Images of the young star and what seems to be its companion planet were taken by astronomers from the University of Toronto using the Gemini North telescope on Mauna Kea in Hawaii .

The star with what is believed to be (circled) its planet

Despite the planet's strangeness, the star is quite like our own sun.

'The star is very typical. It's like the sun, just younger. But the planet is quite unusual. It's on the high end of the mass of the extrasolar planets found so far. And it's also very far away from its star,' Ray Jayawardhana, one of the scientists, said.

The stellar pair are located in our Milky Way galaxy about 500 light years from Earth. A light year is about 6 trillion miles, or the distance light travels in a year.

Mr Jayawardhana said there is evidence of water and carbon monoxide in the planet's atmosphere. The planet is not thought to be a good candidate for extraterrestrial life because it appears to be a gas giant and therefore inhospitable to life.



Previously, the only planets outside the solar system to be photographed have belonged to tiny, dim stars known as brown dwarfs.

And while roughly 300 extrasolar planets have been detected by noting their gravitational tug on their parent stars, it is rare to find one large enough to image directly.

'"It's always been a goal to take a picture of a planet around another star. The challenge, of course, is that planets are much, much fainter than stars,' Mr Jayawardhana added.

The team said they are working to confirm that the planet is indeed orbiting this star as it appears, but it may take up to two years to get that data.

