NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope managed to capture images of a planet that orbits a star. Pictures of Fomalhaut b oribiting the southern star called Fomalhaut were presented in the November 14 issue of Science magazine.

According to NASA, the planet holds less than three times Jupiter’s mass and the star belongs to the Piscis Australis constellation, which is also known as the Southern Fish.

The observation process began back in the early 1980s, when the agency’s Infrared Astronomy Satellite discovered that dust was surrounding the star. The first resolved visible-light image of the area was available in 2004 thanks to Hubble’s high-resolution Advanced Camera for Surveys. The photo showed a ring of protoplanetary debris, close to 21.5 billion miles across, and there was also observed a sharp inner edge, indicating that the ring particles were under the gravitational effect of a planet.

One year later, in 2005, Paul Kalas, a Hubble astronomer from the University of California at Berkley, presented a theory supported by many which said that a planet between the star, Fomalhaut, and the inner edge of the ring had a gravitational effect that offset the ring from the center of the star.

This week’s photo managed to confirm Kalas’ scenario, as it presents a point source of light 1.8 billion miles inside the ring’s inner edge. The planet is 10.7 billion miles away from the star but there is a clear gravitational connection between the two.

"Our Hubble observations were incredibly demanding," Kalas said. "Fomalhaut b is 1 billion times fainter than the star. We began this program in 2001, and our persistence finally paid off."