July 30, 2013

Artistic concept of the planet HD 189733b transiting its star. The small insert shows The star HD 189733 A with its companion HD 189733 B and another externa object seen by the Chandra space telescope (Image X-ray: NASA/CXC/SAO/K. Poppenhaeger et al; Illustration: NASA/CXC/M. Weiss)

The Chandra X-ray space telescope was used for the first time to detect the presence of an exoplanet. This is not a discovery because the planet in question is HD 189733b, more formally HD 189733 Ab, which was already in the spotlight a few weeks ago because the observations made with the Hubble Space Telescope established that its color is blue.