http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/050401_first_extrasolarplanet_pic.html

This is pretty neat; I had no idea that telescopes had anywhere near the resolving power needed to image planets.

Open the big image of the thing and stare at the star, does it look like its moving to anyone else?

put down the bong, boco.

and this is very cool. astronomy teacher is gonna be happy on monday.

Ooh. Cool. I like.

Does it even count as a planet if it's being engulfed by the flames of it's sun? At least that's what it looks like is happening.

Nah, I think the telescope can't get an accurate pic of the glow around the sun so at that resolution it looks like its different layers of flame around the sun.

Actually, it says in the article that it's 100 times farther away from its star than Earth is from the Sun. I think the "flames" are just imaging artifacts, because stars are way too far away to show up as more than one pixel, even on the highest resolution telescopes.

Maybe, that planet has a telescope on us right now.

*Cue X-Files theme*

"The truth is out there"

That bit made me laugh out loud. How original of a name.

hehe, somehow sounds like something out of Austin Powers or something.

Hey, don't mock it! Maybe it really is a very large telescope!

There was never a better time:

Am I the only one that's slightly sceptical because the news is from April 1st?

I'm a bit skeptical myself...

Especially because of that comment in the article that drizzt posted about the VLT...

Very Large Telescope just doesn't sound like something they'd actually call a telescope... it seems so... made up..

Then I googled VLT

found:

http://www.eso.org/projects/vlt/

There is also a Large Telescope and I think they are building a Super Large Telescope or something like that. Until the the VLT is the biggest telescope of the world.

for those that are sceptical the VLT is indeed a real telescope and has only recently come into full operation...

I would be hesitant to call it a planet however, there are still questions on the mass of the object and it could end up falling into the category of a failed star, a brown dwarf...

however its still the smallest object to be resolved orbiting a star very similar to ours, so even if it is not a star its still mighty impressive achievement

That name is no odder than VHF and UHF (very high frequency and ultra hugh frequency).