Scientists get images of planet with sun-like star

By Will Dunham

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Scientists have snapped the first images of a planet outside our solar system that is orbiting a star very much like the sun.

Nearly all of the roughly 300 so-called extrasolar planets discovered to date have been detected using indirect methods such as changes observed in a star when a planet orbits directly in front of it from the perspective of Earth.

But in findings announced on Monday, University of Toronto scientists said they used the Gemini North telescope on Mauna Kea in Hawaii to take direct pictures of the planet, which is about the size of Jupiter but with eight times the mass.

It is also much hotter than Jupiter, they said.

This planet and the star it seems to orbit are located in our Milky Way galaxy about 500 light years from Earth, the scientists said. A light year is about 6 trillion miles (10 trillion km), or the distance light travels in a year.

"It's always been a goal to take a picture of a planet around another star. The challenge, of course, is that planets are much, much fainter than stars," Ray Jayawardhana, one of the scientists, said in a telephone interview.

Of all known extrasolar planets, this one is orbiting the furthest from its star. It is located roughly 11 times further from its star than Neptune -- the outermost planet in our solar system -- is located from the sun, the scientists said.

They said they are working to confirm that the planet is indeed orbiting this star as it appears, but it may take up to two years to get that data.