Astronomers confirm planet find

New images taken of an object five times the mass of Jupiter confirm that it is a giant planet closely orbiting a distant star, an international team of astronomers has reported.

The team of European and American astronomers said that this is the first time a planet outside our solar system has been directly observed – a claim other scientists have also made.

The team first spotted the object last year as a faint reddish speck of light circling a dim brown dwarf – or failed star – 225 light-years away from Earth near the constellation Hydra. At the time, scientists guessed the faint light was a planet, but said further observation was needed.

The discovery touched off a debate over whether the object was actually a planet or a background star. Since the mid-1990s, scientists have discovered more than 130 of these so-called extrasolar planets by indirect means, but observing them directly has proved difficult.

Gael Chauvin, an astronomer at the European Southern Observatory, who led the team, said: “Our new images show convincingly that this really is a planet, the first planet that has ever been imaged outside of our solar system.”