Hmm

Apod is at it again this morning. Today's picture found here purports to be the first image of a planet outside our solar system. Baloney! The blurb states the difference in brightness between the star and the 'planet' is 100 times. If it's a planet all the light from it is reflected. They estimate the distance between the star and the planet is 55 au (au = the distance from the earth to the sun). The distance between the sun and Jupiter, a planet they are claiming is similar to the one in the pictue, is about 5 au. The difference in brightness between Jupiter and the sun is 10,000,000,000 times. Now you have to make allowances for the fact the earth is between four and six times closer to the sun than Jupiter, which makes 'Big Red' look dimmer to us by comparison, but not by a factor as big as 100. The 'planet' in the pictue is 11 times farther from its companion star than Jupiter, but in comparison at least a million times brighter to our telescopes. Conclusion: the picture is not of a planet. It's a baby star not many times bigger than Jupiter that people have been predicting for many years. It's a glorious find indeed, just not the splashy one indicated in the text. It doesn't take a great scientist to figure this out, just someone willing to check the figures. When it comes to the science press caveat lector!