WASHINGTON — The Hubble Space Telescope has captured what may be the first image ever recorded of a planet outside our solar system, scientists announced on Thursday.
The object appears to be a ``gas giant'' like Jupiter, but about three times as massive, that was hurled away from its young parent stars in a busy stellar nursery 450 light-years from Earth.
If it is in fact a planet _ and several experts agree that the odds are less than one in 50 that it is not _ then ``this image is not merely extraordinary, but of historical significance,'' said Alan P. Boss of the Carnegie Institution of Washington.
``I've been waiting a long time for this day,'' said Edward Weiler, director of NASA's Origins Program. People have always wondered whether there were planets created around other stars than our own, but ``until five years ago, we had absolutely no reason to say yes,'' he said. Since then, there has been indirect evidence for as many as eight such ``extrasolar'' planets, based on the way they affected the motion of their neighboring stars. ``Still, there was no image _ until, perhaps, today.''
If confirmed by observations at the Keck observatories in Hawaii and elsewhere, the new find ``absolutely'' increases the likelihood that there are other planets ``like Earth with atmospheres like Earth's that can support life,'' Weiler said.
Of course, gas giants such as Jupiter or Saturn cannot support life forms as we know them. But many astronomers think the mere presence of such planets, and their gravitational effects, makes it more likely that solid, terrestrial planets will form in the same system, just as they did around our sun.
That is why the new image is ``a landmark in our quest to understand our origins,'' said Stephen Strom of the University of Massachusetts at Amherst.