Photos: Pink Alien Planet Is Smallest Seen with Sun-Like Star

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Exoplanet GJ 504b

Credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center/S. Wiessinger

Glowing a dark magenta, the newly discovered exoplanet GJ 504b weighs in with about four times Jupiter's mass, making it the lowest-mass planet ever directly imaged around a star like the sun. [Read the Full Story]

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Exoplanet GJ 504 b

Credit: M. Kuzuhara, University of Tokyo/SEEDS Survey

The Subaru Telescope captured this image of exoplanet GJ 504 b, which is several times larger than Jupiter. [Read the Full Story]

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Alien Planet Revealed

Credit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center/NOAJ

This composite combines Subaru images of GJ 504 using two near-infrared wavelengths (shown in orange and blue). Once processed to remove scattered starlight, the images reveal the orbiting planet, GJ 504 b. [Read the Full Story]

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Virgo

Credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center/NOAJ

The newly imaged planet orbits the fifth-magnitude star GJ 504, also known as 59 Virginis, which is visible to the unaided eye from suburban skies in the constellation Virgo. [Read the Full Story]

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Near-Infrared Disks

Credit: National Astronomical Observatory of Japan

The disks in this image were photographed in the near-infrared through the Strategic Exploration of Exoplanets and Disks with Subaru, or SEEDS, program. Alien worlds detected in the gaps and spiral-arm structures of these disks could help explain how planets form in young star systems. [Read the Full Story]