Humanity's First "View" of an Exoplanet - Comprehensive Information - Wenzhou Human Resources Network

Astronomers released a set of photos on the 13th showing four newly discovered exoplanets outside the solar system. This marks the first time humans have directly captured images of planets outside our solar system. The four stars are three gas giants orbiting HR8799 and Fomalhaut b.

Astronomers predict that the day when we find Earth-like planets outside our solar system may not be far off.

Researchers have so far discovered more than 300 possible planets outside the solar system, but they were all detected through measurements of their gravity, velocity, and brightness changes. This is the first time that the "true image" of a planet has been directly captured. Physicist Bruce Macintosh of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory said: "The discovery of the HR8799 star system is a crucial step in the search for another Earth."

According to an Associated Press report, there have been some photos of exoplanets before, but some of the planets in these photos have not yet been confirmed. Others have not gained widespread recognition and may just be some brown dwarfs. (Brown dwarfs are a type of stellar object that, due to insufficient mass, cannot sustain luminosity like normal stars through hydrogen nuclear fusion.)