"WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Scientists have snapped the first images of a planet outside our solar system that is orbiting a star very much like the sun.

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Nearly all of the roughly 300 so-called extrasolar planets discovered to date have been detected using indirect methods such as changes observed in a star when a planet orbits directly in front of it from the perspective of Earth.

But in findings announced on Monday, University of Toronto scientists said they used the Gemini North telescope on Mauna Kea in Hawaii to take direct pictures of the planet, which is about the size of Jupiter but with eight times the mass."

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080915/sc_nm/planet_images_dc


Now, it's these type of 'direct methods' and more advanced optical telescope surveys around stars that will ultimately find planets like Earth. They should be looking 47 to 100 lights years away, not 500!