The technology you use to snap selfies is now being used to photograph planets trillions of miles away — a process which could help determine which ones may be hospitable to humans.

Astronomers for the first time have captured an image of an exoplanet — a planet that exists outside of our solar system — with an earth-based telescope that uses the same sensors found in a digital camera.

Though the technology still has a long way to go, the digital camera puts astronomers one step closer to being able to photograph exoplanets in visible light. Previous attempts used infrared technology, which works by detecting heat. That meant older planets, which have cooled off since they've formed and might be habitable, couldn't be captured.

"Our ultimate goal is to be able to image what we call pale blue dots," Laird Close, a professor at the University of Arizona and co-author of the report, said in a statement.

"After all, the Earth is blue. And that's where you want to look for other planets: in reflected blue light."

Using this new technique, astronomers photographed the exoplanet Beta Pictoris b, which orbits its star at a distance smaller than Saturn's around the Sun. This led to confirmation that its atmosphere is approximately 2600 degrees Farenheit and that its mass is about 12 times more than Jupiter.

Mass and temperature are two important factors in determining whether a planet could be suitable for life.

Beta Pictoris is approximately 100,000 times fainter than its star. Astronomers were able to overcome this hurdle using the Magellan Advanced Optics, otherwise known as MagAO, a telescope also developed by scientists at the University of Arizona that uses a mirror to fix image degradation caused the atmosphere.

Close's report was published in the March issue of The Astrophysics Journal.

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