So far, astronomers have confirmed over 6,300 exoplanets circling a host star beyond our solar system. They range from small, rocky worlds to enormous orbs of gas like our own Jupiter or Saturn. Some, scientists suspect, could host life because they orbit their star in the habitable zone, the region where conditions are just right for liquid water to exist on their surface.
Getting a close glimpse of these worlds remains challenging because of the unfathomable distances involved. Distinguishing the signals emanating from these exoplanets from their far brighter host stars has also been an insurmountable challenge — until now.
As detailed in a yet-to-be-peer-reviewed paper, a team of astrophysicists from Harvard and the University of Oregon, Eugene, say they’ve detected radio signals directly from an exoplanet for the first time using the MeerKAT radio telescope in South Africa.
The planet, dubbed beta Pictoris b, is a gas giant with a mass of over 11 Jupiters that takes over 23 Earth years to orbit its host star. It was first discovered in 2008 and is located 64 light-years from Earth.
