When I was young, I was told that we would never be able to image a planet that is orbiting another star. Yet in November 2008, Hubble took the first visible light image of a planet orbiting around the star Fomalhaut, which is approximately 25 light years from Earth. At the same time, astronomers using the Keck and Gemini telescopes imaged three orbiting companions to star HR8799, which is approximately 140 light years from Earth.
Now astronomers have done it again. Using new optics technology, researchers have directly imaged Beta Pictoris b. This planet is about 7 times more massive than Jupiter, and orbits the star Beta Pictoris, which is approximately 63 light years away from Earth. Using this new technology, astronomers are able to image planets that are 7 Astronomical Units (AU) from their host star. One AU is defined as the average distance between the sun and the Earth, or approximately 93 million miles (150 million kilometers).
At the core of the system is a small piece of glass with a highly complex pattern inscribed into its surface. Called an Apodizing Phase Plate, or APP, the device blocks out the starlight in a very defined way, allowing planets to show up in the image whose signals were previously drowned out by the star’s glare.
