The Hubble Space Telescope has returned an image of what is possibly the first planet outside our solar system. TMR-1C, about 450 light years away in the constellation Taurus, appears to have been "flung away from the vicinity of a newly forming pair of binary stars," as evidenced by a luminescent filament leading from the "planet" back to the stars. "Susan Terebey of the Extrasolar Research Corporation in Pasadena, California, and her team using Hubble's Near Infrared Camera and Multi-Object Spectrometer (NICMOS)," made the discovery. Hubble experts estimate the chance of the object being a background star instead of a planet at one to two percent. This Space Science Telescope Institute site contains the press release, captioned images in several formats and resolutions, and a space science update, a one hour RealPlayer press conference with Dr. Terebey and other astronomers.
Comments