The planet that isn’t

“Too darn hot.” The title of a Cole Porter tune sums up why an astronomer has now retracted her 1998 claim that the faint object her team imaged with the Hubble Space Telescope is most likely a planet. Her original announcement made front-page headlines (SN: 6/6/98, p. 357) since her observations appeared to be the first direct detection of a planet outside the solar system.