The Jupiter-like world Epsilon Indi Ab is one of the coldest—and closest—exoplanets that astronomers have ever seen
The exoplanet Epsilon Indi Ab. Blue scale-like features are visible in the background, with the host star’s light being blocked by a black circle in the centre of the image . The exoplanet is visible on the left as a bright orange circle.Astronomers have photographed a planet six times as massive as Jupiter orbiting one of the closest stars to the Sun. It is the first“This is a cold planet,” says astronomer Elisabeth Matthews at the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy in Heidelberg, Germany.
Using ‘wobble’ techniques, astronomers had already seen hints that there could be a massive object orbiting the Sun-like star ε Indi A, which lies just 3.6 parsecs from Earth, in the far-south Indus Constellation. The resulting image revealed a planet weighing six times as much as Jupiter, which means that like Jupiter, it must be a ‘gas giant’ made mostly of hydrogen gas, Matthews says. The planet, named ε Indi Ab, is around 15 times as far from its host star as Earth is from the Sun, and its temperature is just above 0 ºC.
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