Scientists Confirm the First Direct Photo of an Exoplanet
An Alien World, Photographed for the First Time This infrared-light photo taken by Gemini Observatory's adaptive optics system shows the star 1RSX J160929.1-210524 and its planet, which is about 8 times the size of Jupiter. The exoplanet, the dot at the upper left, is the first one to be directly photographed. Gemini Observatory See that little dot in the upper left corner? It is a planet orbiting a sun-like star. We know of a few hundred planets like this, but this one is special -- we now know it's the first one to have its picture properly taken from Earth. The adaptive optics system at the Gemini Observatory in Hawaii snapped this photo in the infrared part of the light spectrum. It shows a hot, large Jupiter-like planet near a smallish sun-like star. It was actually found two years ago, but astronomers couldn't be sure they were really looking at a planetary...