Press Releases 2005

ESO PR Photo 14a/05

The Brown Dwarf 2M1207 and its Planetary Companion (VLT/NACO)

[Preview - JPEG: 400 x 467 pix - 73k]
[Normal - JPEG: 800 x 934 pix - 184k]

Caption: ESO PR Photo 14a/05 The first planet outside of our solar system to be imaged orbits a brown dwarf (centre-right) at a distance that is nearly twice as far as Neptune is from the sun. The photo is based on three near-infrared exposures (in the H, K and L' wavebands) with the NACO adaptive-optics facility at the 8.2-m VLT Yepun telescope at the ESO Paranal Observatory.

ESO PR Photo 14b/05

Positions of 2M1207A and of its Companion (VLT/NACO)

[Preview - JPEG: 400 x 415 pix - 101k]
[Normal - JPEG: 800 x 830 pix - 220k]

Caption: ESO PR Photo 14b/05 shows the relative position of 2M1207b with respect to 2M1207a at three different epochs (April 2004, February and March 2005). The top panel shows the separation between the two objects in milli-arcseconds, while the lower one represents the relative angle. The blue line shows the predicted change in position if the feeble speck of light would have been a background object. It is clear however that the data indicate that the two objects move together in the sky, hence are bound (red line).

ESO PR Photo 14c/05

Artist's rendering of the 2M1207 System

[Preview - JPEG: 400 x 532 pix - 110k]
[Normal - JPEG: 800 x 1063 pix - 284k]
[HiRes - JPEG: 2257 x 3000 pix - 1.6M] [HiRes - TIF: 2257 x 3000 pix - 3.4M]

Caption: ESO PR Photo 14c/05 shows an artist's rendering of the first planet outside of our solar system to be imaged orbiting a brown dwarf (right). The giant planet is approximately five times the mass of Jupiter. Both objects are believed to be very young, less than 10 million years old. The brown dwarf is still surrounded by a circumstellar disc.

ESO PR Photo 14d/05

The Star AB Pictoris and its Companion (VLT/NACO)

[Preview - JPEG: 400 x 467 pix - 62k]
[Normal - JPEG: 800 x 933 pix - 146k]

Caption: ESO PR Photo 14d/05 is a coronagraphic image of AB Pictoris showing its tiny companion (bottom left). The data was obtained on 16 March 2003 with NACO on the VLT, using a 1.4 arcsec occulting mask on top of AB Pictoris.

ESO PR Video 02/05

The First Image of a Exoplanet Confirmed

[QuickTime: 320 x 240 pix - 20Mb - 1:07 min]

Captions: ESO PR Video Clip 02/05 is a small montage providing excerpts of an interview with Dr. Gael Chauvin (ESO), leader of the team of astronomers who took the image of the 2M1207 system, as well as a computer animation of what the system might look like.