Images of Other Planetary Systems?
On July 22, 2020, the first images of multiple planets orbiting a sun-like star were captured by European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope (VLT) in Chile. It was able to photograph two giant planets orbiting a smaller and younger-looking version of our sun. The planet system is estimated to be about 300 light-years away. A light-year is the distance light travels in one Earth year.
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| Images Captured by the VLT |
The VLT is an observatory in Chile. The VLT is the most productive ground-based facility for astronomy. The only thing that beats it is the Hubble Space telescope. The VLT first started taking pictures in 1998. It is mainly used to find new exoplanets, but it also has been one of the many telescopes to gather data to take the first picture of a black hole, as well as research gamma rays in space.
To take the picture, scientists use the VLT’s tool called SPHERE. SPHERE stands for Spectro-Polarimetric High-contrast Exoplanet Research instrument. The device helps detect exoplanets by using a device called a coronagraph, which blocks a star's blinding light, allowing astronomers to see and study orbiting planets that would otherwise be lost in the glare.
In the past, only two multi-planet systems have been photographed. However, this is the first time we have seen a multi-planet system orbit the sun. The two planets in the photograph are also very large. The planet closest to the sun-like star is approximately 14 times larger than Jupiter and 160 AU(Astronomical Unit) from its sunlike star, while the farther planet, which is 6 times heftier than Jupiter, is 320 AU from its sunlike star (to put it into perspective, our Sun is 1 AU from Earth). Regardless of this, the discovery and the photograph are very important as it can provide us with more information on how our solar system formed, as well as learning more about other multi-planet systems.
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| VLT in Chile |
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