Mystery planets discovered
- 00:01:57
- ITN
Mystery planets discovered
Astronomers have unveiled the first images of other worlds outside our solar system. The pictures show four planets trillions of miles away - three of them orbiting the same star and the other circling another sun. None of the four giant gaseous planets are remotely habitable but they raise the possibility of other more hospitable worlds being discovered. The research from two teams, one using ground-based telescopes and the other relying on the Hubble Space Telescope, was published in the respected journal Science. In the past 13 years, scientists have discovered more than 300 planets outside our solar system, but they have done so indirectly, by measuring changes in gravity, speed or light around stars. Others have claimed they have photographed "exoplanets" but the pictures have not been confirmed as planets or universally accepted. Nasa's space sciences chief Ed Weiler said: "If I see what look like elephant footprints, I might think I've detected elephants, but until I get that picture, that simple picture of an elephant, I'm not really sure." The planet discovered by Hubble, Fomalhaut b, is one of the smallest exoplanets found yet. It's somewhere between the size of Neptune and three times bigger than Jupiter. And it may have a Saturn-like ring. It circles the star Fomalhaut, which is Arabic for "mouth of the fish", in the constellation Piscis Austrinus - and at a mere 148 trillion miles away is practically a next-door neighbour by galactic standards.
ITN | November 14, 2008
