Snapshot of a planet beyond the solar system

The image is possibly the first of an extrasolar planet orbiting a normal star, but some of its features counter current thinking.

After years of searching, astronomers may finally have recorded the first image of a planet orbiting a sunlike star beyond the solar system. The body, about eight times Jupiter’s mass, lies exceptionally far from its presumed parent star — roughly 11 times Neptune’s average distance from the sun.