Astronomers ‘see’ light reflected from exoplanet for the first time

Astronomers have captured visible radiation from an exoplanet for the first time. All exoplanets so far have only been observed indirectly, for example by looking at the radiation of the star around which the exoplanet orbits.

The exoplanet emitted by ESO’s 3.6m telescope in Chile is 51 Pegasi b or Bellerophon, the first planet to orbit a normal star outside our solar system, discovered in the 1990s. It is the first time that an instrument on Earth has collected radiation in the visible spectrum from an exoplanet. Exoplanets have been photographed before, but an exoplanet has not been observed in this way before. Normally, astronomers study the radiation of stars to see if there are changes in it, in order to detect the presence of planets that pass in front of their star.

The radiation has also enabled ESO astronomers to estimate the size and weight of this exoplanet, much like Jupiter in our solar system, a gas giant. It appears larger than Jupiter and half as heavy. The exoplanet is about 50 light-years from Earth.

This is a render of 51 Pegasi b