Direct Imaging of “Jupiter’s Younger Sibling”
By W. M. Keck Observatory
July 3, 2023Using the W. M. Keck Observatory, a team of astronomers led by Kyle Franson at the University of Texas at Austin has captured direct images of one of the lowest-mass planets, named AF Lep b. This discovery, published in the Astrophysical Journal Letters, marks the first use of the astrometry technique in detecting a giant planet orbiting a young Sun-like star.Scientists have used a technique called astrometry to directly image one of the lowest-mass planets, AF Lep b, orbiting a young…