Hum,
The first confirmed picture of an exoplanet.
The planet has a temperature of about 2000 Kelvin (it`s still forming), though the presence of water in the planet's atmosphere was detected. The new found world is 1.8 times the diameter of Jupiter, with a mass estimated to be one to two times that of Jupiter.
The planet orbits 103 ± 37 AU from the T Tauri star,
GQ Lupi.
< another image >"
We should expect that the planet orbits around the star, but at its large separation one orbital period is roughly 1,200 years, so that orbital motion is not yet detected." - Prof. Ralph Neuhaeuser.
"
It is unlikely, but not impossible, that the planet formed at that large separation, because circumstellar disks around other stars often are that large or even larger."
The K7 star,
GQ Lupi, is only about 1 million years old, and found in a star-forming region about 400 light-years away. It has 70 % the mass of the Sun.
Position(2000): RA = 15 49 12.144 , DEC = -35 39 03.95
Original story (pdf)History in the making....
:-)
