Free Astronomy Magazine September-October 2020

24 SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER 2020 SPACE CHRONICLES by ESO T his image, captured by the SPHERE instrument on ESO’s Very Large Tele- scope, shows the star TYC 8998-760-1 accompanied by two giant exoplanets, TYC 8998-760-1b and TYC 8998- 760-1c. This is the first time astronomers have directly observed more than one planet orbiting a star similar to the Sun. The two planets are visible as two bright dots in the centre (TYC 8998-760-1b) and bottom right (TYC 8998-760-1c) of the frame, noted by arrows. Other bright dots, which are background stars, are visible in the image as well. By taking differ- ent images at different times, the team were able to distinguish the planets from the background stars. The image was captured by blocking the light from the young, Sun-like star using a coronagraph, which allows for the fainter planets to be detected. The bright and dark rings we see on the star’s image are optical artefacts. [ESO/Bohn et al.] First ever image of a multi-planet system around a Sun-like star J ust a few weeks ago, ESO revealed a plane- tary system being born in a new, stunning VLT image. Now, the same tele- scope, using the same in- strument, has taken the first direct image of a planetary system around a star like our Sun, located about 300 light-years away and known as TYC 8998-760-1. “This discovery is a snapshot of an environment that is very similar to our Solar Sys- tem, but at a much earlier stage of its evolution,” says Alexander Bohn, a PhD stu- dent at Leiden University in the Netherlands, who led the new research published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters . “Even though as-