Hubble Snaps Photo of Extrasolar Planet

iamlucky13 writes "Space.com has reported that a Hubble Space Telescope photo supports with a very high degree of confidence that a picture taken by the European Space Observatory does indeed show an extrasolar planet. As many readers know, planets outside our solar system are typically found by watching for wobbles in a star's orbit or for dimming caused by the planet crossing in front of its star. The ESO and Hubble images would represent the 1st and 2nd times that planets outside our solar system have been directly detected. The planet is about 5 times as massive as Jupiter and orbits a brown dwarf a little farther out than Pluto orbits our own sun."

Comments

Minor correction

[Anonymous Coward]

The ESO is the European Southern Observatory, not Space Observatory.

Its always such a disapointment

[Timesprout]

when you see these photos. I know its a tremendous achievement but when you see a whole planet and it still looks like a little pixelated blob then its hard to match the achievement to what you are actually viewing.

Re:Its always such a disapointment

[the_mad_poster]

MTV generation indeed. A generation I'm part of and disgusted by, in large part.

Part of the problem, of course, is that NASA takes 80 billion photos of large, interstellar objects like massive galaxies, none of which actually show the large object as it actually appears (or, in most cases, DOESN'T appear). Then, they combine all their infrared and this radiation that radiation images into one big, purty, inaccurate public "photo" that makes everyone go "ooooh ahhhh" when, in fact, the object actually looks nothing like the photo the press was given.

Then, when people see the real pictures they go "what the hell is this pixelated blob? If this planet is so big and so close [relative to the aforementioned large object] why can't I see little green men waving to me on it?"

Headline

[truthsearch]

You gotta love the Register's headline for this story: "Extra-solar planet snapped by galactic paparazzi". I supposed they are looking at a big star, but... Anyway, gave me a chuckle.

Re:Sounds like

[RazzleFrog]

Are there really that many people who oppose interstellar travel? Wouldn't we have to prove it is feasible first before people really started worrying about the cost? We haven't even figured out how to get to Mars and back in a reasonable fashion yet.

Planet Finder

[KavanaghNY]

NASA is developing the Terrestrial Planet Finder which should discover and image even smaller extrasolar planets when it is launched in a few years. Sooner than that, the Kepler Mission "will survey the extended solar neighborhood to detect and characterize hundreds of terrestrial and larger planets in or near the "habitable zone," defined by scientists as the distance from a star where liquid water can exist on a planet's surface."

Re:orbit - MSNBC appears to have misquoted

[tinytim]

The MSNBC cites the space.com article as its source, and the space.com article states:
"It orbits the brown dwarf star at about 30 percent farther than Pluto is from our Sun."

Re:Probability

[Kjella]

I presume they took their data, and from that created a probability cone of where it was going, not unlike the recent comet thing. And of that probability cone, 99,1% would lead to an orbit around the brown dwarf.

If I have a random number between 0 and 100 (probability cone), I can be 99,1% sure it'll be within 0 and 99,1 (in orbit). I assume they can pretty exactly determine the "band" in which objects would stay in orbit.

Re:Sounds like

[AviLazar]

If they can gaurantee me an atmosphere to breathe - as the saying goes "Beam me up Scotty" - I wanna go. It would be an adventure of a lifetime. Yea I would spend years in space - but the end result might just be worth it (especially if they create a big enough space ship that contains the population of a small town). Ok this sounds geeky and far fetched - but why not? The only thing stopping us is greed and fear.

Re:Probability

[LMCBoy]

This is the kind of silliness that results when astronomers talk to the press.

Among ourselves, astronomers will talk about how many "sigma" a detection is, referring to how far above the Gaussian noise the signal is. A 1-sigma detection is real 68% of the time. 2-sigma detections are real 95% of the time, 3-sigma data are 99.7% sure, etc. So, Glenn is just saying that the hypothesis that the brown dwarf and its candidate companion are actually moving together in space is supported by the data above the errors by about 2.5 sigma or so. With further observations, the errors will shrink, and it will then be above three sigma (assuming the hypothesis is correct).

But, Glenn can't talk about "sigmas" to the press, because, sadly, not everyone knows the wonders of the Gaussian normal distribution. So he does a quick conversion to probabilities for the press release. BTW, it is indeed possible to characterize errors to the tenth of a percent, especially when you are close to 100% confidence.

Get ready for more astronomy-related news this week; our annual society meeting (AAS) is taking place in San Diego.