Planet Seen Around Distant Sun

BBC NEWS | Science/Nature | Planet 'seen' around distant sun: "The European Southern Observatory group said the red image is the first direct shot of a planet around another star.

The planet, known as 2M1207B, is about five times the size of Jupiter and is orbiting at a distance nearly twice as far as Neptune is from our Sun.

The parent star and planet are more than 200 light-years away near the southern constellation of Hydra.

There has been a lot of competition among astronomers to secure the first direct picture of an exoplanet.

When the ESO group first released the picture last September there was doubt over whether the star and planet were gravitationally bound."