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For the first time in history, planetary systems much like our own have been photographically documented by human technology. The photographs show Fomalhaut, a star located 25 light-years away from Earth, being orbited by a single planet. Another system has also been discovered circling the star HR 8799, roughly 130 light-years away. While this may not mean much to some, for those in the astronomy community this news is Earth-shattering, so to speak. The existence of other planets beyond those in our solar system has been long considered a certainty, but for the first time ever planets have been found, photographed, and identified.

An image released today of a distant star and its potential planetary companion could go down in history as the first picture of a planet outside our solar system orbiting a sunlike star. The possible planet—a hot, young body (upper left) about eight times more massive than Jupiter—sits roughly 330 times as far from its host star as Earth is from the sun. The pair lies about 500 light-years from Earth.