By Daily Mail Reporter
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A new planet labelled a 'super-Jupiter' has been spotted by astronomers who believe the find could challenge ideas about planet formations.
Scientists have long debated the prospect of large stars given birth to planets in a rotating disk of dust and gas but the new find suggest this could now be true.
Captured by Japan's Subaru 8-metre telescope the planet, thought to be 13 times larger than our solar system's biggest planet, Jupiter, the object was spotted orbiting a star called Kappa Andromedae.
Discovery: Snapped by the Subaru telescope this is the near infrared image of the Kappa Andromedae star system
At more than two and a half times the mass of the sun and located 170 light-years away from Earth, the star is far from insignificant either.
And based on observations by scientists, it appears the 'super Jupiter' has formed in the same way ordinary, lower-mass exoplanets do, by growing as one mass together to from a 'protoplanetary disk' of material orbiting a star in its infancy.
It is thought that because its orbit, somewhat wider than the path Neptune takes around our sun, is at a comparable distance to planetary orbits in the solar system, the idea would lend its self to its formation.
Additionally, its star, Kappa Andromedae, is relatively young, at about 30 million years old pointing toward a formation cycle typical of smaller planets.
Similar finds: just last year the LkCa 15 b was discovered 450 light years away from Earth and was also found to be 'building itself' out of dust and gas (artist's impression)
Although it is far from the first new planet to be discovered, it is just one of a handful that have been captured in a photograph.
Four of the scans that allowed astronomers to 'see' LcKa 15d - and realise that it was surrounded by a 'disc' of dust that showed it was still forming
Unlike the some 800 planets discovered previously astronomers were able to capture the image by using an infrared light, and a technique to hide the glare from the star.
The optical sleight of hand used by the astronomers is to combine adaptive optics with a technique called aperture mask interferometry. The former is the use of a deformable mirror to rapidly correct for atmospheric distortions of starlight.
The latter involves placing a small mask with several holes in the path of the light collected and concentrated by a giant telescope. With that, the scientists can manipulate light waves.
The discover comes after another planet - called LkCa 15 b, was found to be a hot 'protoplanet' surrounded by cooler dust and gas, falling into the still-forming planet.
LkCa 15b will also become a Jupiter-like gas giant.
The latest find was snapped by Japan's impressive Subaru 8-metre telescope on the summit of Mauna Kea in Hawaii.
The discovery will be published in an upcoming issue of the Astrophysical Journal Letters.
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