Hubble spots a star-circling planet

PASADENA, Calif., Nov. 13 (UPI) -- The U.S. space agency says its Hubble Space Telescope has taken the first visible-light snapshot of a planet circling another star.

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration said the planet, called Fomalhaut b, is estimated to be no more than three times Jupiter's mass. It orbits the bright southern star Fomalhaut, located 25 light-years away in the constellation Piscis Australis, or the "Southern Fish."

NASA astronomers said Fomalhaut has been a candidate for planet hunting ever since an excess of dust was discovered around the star during the early 1980s by NASA's Infrared Astronomy Satellite.

"Our Hubble observations were incredibly demanding," said Hubble astronomer Paul Kalas of the University of California-Berkeley. "Fomalhaut b is 1 billion times fainter than the star."

NASA said future observations will attempt to see the planet in infrared light and will look for evidence of water vapor clouds in its atmosphere.

Astronomers said the James Webb Space Telescope, scheduled to be launched in 2013, will be able to make coronagraphic observations of Fomalhaut in near- and mid-infrared wavelengths, as well as search for other planets in the system.