Victoria (BC) – Scientists of Canada’s National Research Council (NRC) succeeded in taking images of an extrasolar star system, or at least parts of it. It is the first time we can see three planets circling a star other than the sun. The star, called HR 8799, is approximately 762.5 trillion miles away from the earth.
Christian Marois of the NRC Herzberg Institute of Astrophysics, who was part of an international team of researchers in the quest of taking an image of HR 8799, said that the effort involved the Gemini North and Keck telescopes on the summit of Mauna Kea in Hawaii to capture a series of pictures of an extrasolar star in the constellation of Pegasus.
HR 8799 is faintly visible to the naked eye and is estimated to be about 130 light years away from the earth. That number cannot nearly transport the meaning of this enormous distance to people who aren’t interested in astronomy. The light emitted by the star as we see it today is already 130 years old and shows how the star looked back then. 130 light years translates into 762.5 trillion miles, or, more exactly, 7.6254048 × 1014 miles.
"We have known for a decade through indirect techniques that the Sun was not the only star to have planets in orbit around it," said Marois. "We finally have an actual image of an entire solar system. This is a milestone in the search for planetary systems around stars."
The scientists believe that HR 8799 is about 1.5 times the mass, much brighter and younger than the sun. Astronomers estimate the star is about 60 million years old.
"It's amazing to have a picture showing not one but three planets," said Bruce Macintosh, a scientist at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and a project collaborator. "The discovery of the HR 8799 system is a crucial step on the road to the ultimate imaging of another Earth."
What fascinating times we live in.
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