THE FIRST SNAPSHOT OF AN EXTRASOLAR PLANET? The existence of extrasolar planets around several stars has been inferred from the wobble in the stars' emissions, but the planets themselves have not been seen amid the glare of the parent stars. Now, the Hubble Space Telescope has taken a picture of an object (named TMR-1C) that might, depending on how the data is interpreted, be either a brown dwarf star or a protoplanet (perhaps with a mass several times that of Jupiter). The object, about 450 light years away and glowing in infrared light, was glimpsed at all because it has apparently been ejected from a nearby binary-star system, and therefore stands apart from any stellar brilliance. This and the object's youth (it might be only 100,000 years old) might redirect thinking on how gas giant planets form. According to NASA scientist Edward Weiler, "If the planet interpretation stands up to the careful scrutiny of future observations, it could turn out to be the most important discovery by Hubble in its 8-year history." (NASA press release, 28 May 1998.)