So much dust surrounds these protostars that they are virtually invisible in ordinary light. However, infrared light penetrates the dust, revealing the newborn stars within. Lower left there is a faint point of light. Calculations indicate that this companion is much too dim to be an ordinary star; instead, a hot young protoplanet several times the mass of Jupiter is consistent with the observed brightness. A bright streak of nebulosity extends from the binary toward the faint companion, possibly indicating that the protoplanet was ejected from the binary system. Current models predict that very young giant planets are still warm from gravitational contraction and formation processes, with temperatures as high as a few thousand degrees Fahrenheit. This makes them relatively bright in infrared light, compared to old giant planets such as Jupiter. Even so, young planets are difficult to find in new solar systems because the glare of the central star drowns out their feeble glow. The image was taken on August 4, 1997. The image is a possible planet surround the star TMR-1 (450 million light years away) in the Taurus constellation. It is the first planet to be physically seen. (Earlier discoveries of extrasolar planets used indirect measurement and physics equations). The planet appears to be several times the size of Jupiter and 1400 times farther away from it's star than Earth is from the Sun.
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