This image, captured by the SPHERE instrument on ESO's Very Large Telescope, shows the star TYC 8998-760-1 accompanied by the two exoplanets visible as two bright dots in the centre (TYC 8998-760-1b) and bottom right (TYC 8998-760-1c) of the frame.
Other bright dots, which are background stars, are visible in the image as well. By taking different images at different times, the team were able to distinguish these planets from the background stars.
The image was captured by blocking the light from the young, Sun-like star (top-left of centre) using a coronagraph, which allows for the fainter planets to be detected. The
bright and dark rings we see on the star's image are optical artefacts.
TYC 8998-760-1 is a young star, about 27 Myr old, located 310 light years away in the constellation of Musca, with a mass 1.00±0.02 times the Sun.
[Reupload]
https://i.redd.it/tip05z10f3td1.jpeg
1 Comment
… is it just me or do I feel like we should NOT have seen this-