Even though more than 4000 extra-solar planets are known today, only a small fraction of these has been captured in an image. To better understand the planet formation mechanisms in solar-like... Show moreEven though more than 4000 extra-solar planets are known today, only a small fraction of these has been captured in an image. To better understand the planet formation mechanisms in solar-like environments we started the Young Suns Exoplanet Survey (YSES). YSES targets a homogeneous sample of seventy young (~15Myr), Sun-like stars of the Scorpius-Centaurus association to search for sub-stellar companions. High-contrast imaging observations that were collected with the SPHERE instrument at the Very Large Telescope revealed (i) a shadowed transition disk around Wray 15-788 that shows significant signs of ongoing planet formation and (ii) one of the lowest-mass companions imaged to date: YSES 2b has a mass of 6.5 Jupiter masses and is orbiting its solar-mass primary at a separation of 110 au. Most intriguing, though, was (iii) the discovery of the first directly imaged multi-planet system around a Sun-like star. The detection of two gas-giant companions of 14±3 and 6±1 Jupiter masses that are orbiting YSES 1 at separations of 160 au and 320 au, respectively, provides important implications for the outer architecture of planetary systems and the underlying formation mechanisms. Show less
Hoeijmakers, H.J; Kok, R.J. de; Snellen, I.A.G; Brogi, M.; Birkby, J.L.; Schwarz, H. 2015
