First Photo of planet circling another star

[pelastration]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/3707185.stm

The historic first image of a planet circling another star may have been taken by the Hubble Space Telescope.

The "planet", 5-10 times the mass of Jupiter, is orbiting a small white dwarf star about 100 light-years away.

Astronomers are being cautious, saying they require more data to be sure it really is a planet and not a background object caught in the same field of view.

 

[quartodeciman]

Here is a bit more:

Pushing the Limit: Possible First Photo of Extrasolar Planet -->
http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/mystery_monday_040510.html

This star is uncataloged? Or are the reporters politely holding off telling the star's identity until Debes and associates can publish?

Quart

 

[LURCH]

I think it's just considered irresponsible journalism to release the star's name until after its next-of-kin can be notified.

Awesome photo, if it's true!

 

[marcus]

Here is a bit more:

Pushing the Limit: Possible First Photo of Extrasolar Planet -->
http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/mystery_monday_040510.html
...

great news thanks to you both
any other links besides Quart's and pelastration's
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/3707185.stm
?

John Debes
grad student at Penn State
apparently works for Steinn Sigurdsson, in a group doing this
maybe a search by names will turn up more

 

[Nereid]

I notice that there's an inconsistency between the two reports; one says the WD star is "about 100 light-years away", the other "The object is one of three planet candidates found in the new study around white dwarf stars between 30 and 55 light-years away". If it's the latter, and at the lower limit, it might appear in the http://www.chara.gsu.edu/RECONS/ .

Note also that waiting to see how the object moves, wrt the WD, over the next few months/years will certainly rule it out as a possible orbiting planet (if the motion is clearly inconsistent with an orbit), but won't necessarily confirm its status (relative motion that mimics a ~30 au planetary orbit is unlikely, but not impossible).

Using only public resources, it may be possible to find where this star is, to within a few arcmins; anyone like to say how?

Does the WD have a catalogue name/number (apart from any which Debes gave it)? Almost certainly! The HST needs to know where to look, so if Debes et al had a target list of 7 WDs, it most likely came from a bigger catalogue. But is the catalogue a 'niche' one? or a broad one? In the RECONS database, the absolute magnitude of the WDs is between ~11 and 15; at ~10pc, the Debes WD may be in a broad catalogue (and may even have been observed by HIPPARCOS!); at ~30pc, it may be too faint to appear in any broad catalogue.