What you are seeing is perhaps the first-ever image of a planet orbiting a sun-like star. The planet has the mass of 8 Jupiters or 2542 Earths, orbits its star at 330 AU, or 11 times the distance to Neptune's orbit.. If the imaged object does turn out to be a planet — and it's not certain it is — then theories of planet formation may have to be adjusted. The new planet was discovered by a Toronto team using a special optics system on the Gemini North telescope atop Hawaii’s Mauna Kea. The team scoured the vicinity of some 85 stars belonging to the Upper Scorpius association. Stars in this grouping lie 500 light-years from Earth and are only about 5 million years old. The sun, by comparison, is 4.56 billion years old.

[Sciencenews via Slashdot]