November 13, 2008--Exoplanet hunters who "followed the dust" in a distant galaxy have been rewarded with a stellar prize: the first visible-light photo of a planet circling a star.

NASA's Hubble Space Telescope snapped the image of Fomalhaut b-seen above in an artist's conception-which orbits the bright star Formalhaur, 25 light-years away from Earth, scientists announced last week.

"Fomalhaut is the gift that keeps on giving. Following the unexpected discovery of its dust ring, we have now found an exoplanet at a location suggested by analysis of the dust ring's shape," team member Mark Clampin of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland said in a statement.