Team using Subaru Telescope makes major discovery

Princeton - Princeton - First finding as part of new research collaboration An international team of scientists that includes an astronomer from Princeton University has made the first direct observation of a planet-like object orbiting a star similar to the sun. The finding marks the first discovery made with the world's newest planet-hunting instrument on the Hawaii-based Subaru Telescope and is the first fruit of a novel research collaboration announced by the University in January. The object, known as GJ 758 B, could be either a large planet or a "failed star," also known as a brown dwarf. The faint companion to the sun-like star GJ 758 is estimated to be 10 to 40 times as massive as Jupiter and is a "near neighbor" in our Milky Way galaxy, hovering a mere 300 trillion miles from Earth. This August 2009 discovery image of GJ 758 B was taken with the Subaru Telescope's HiCIAO instrument in the near infrared, which measures and records differences in heat. Without the special technique employed here (angular differential imaging), the star's glare would overwhelm the light from the planet candidates. The planet-like object, GJ 758 B, is circled as B in the lower right portion of the image.