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Spitzer Telescope Discovers Planets Via Infrared

Posted by Zonk on from the earth-like-planet-in-my-sites dept.

DirtyJ writes "Astronomers using the Spitzer Space Telescope have for the first time discovered two extrasoloar planets by directly detecting light from the planets themselves. Usually planets are discovered by indirectly inferring their presence from the wobble of star they orbit, but Spitzer has been able to directly detect these objects at Infrared wavelengths. Nifty conceptual images and videos are available."

6 of 113 comments (clear)

  1. Ob-Infrared-Ditty by Otto · · Score: 4, Funny

    Now the world has gone to bed,
    Darkness won't engulf my head,
    I can see by infrared,
    How I hate the night.

    --
    - Give a man a fire and he's warm for a day, but set him on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life.
  2. Earth First... by RM6f9 · · Score: 3, Funny

    We'll strip mine the other planets later?
    If it weren't for the 2-minute delay between posts...

    Just don't feed the trolls (tt)

    --
    Take the 90-Day Challenge! http://rwmurker.bodybyvi.com/
  3. And they call this science? by Mindwarp · · Score: 4, Funny

    If I were providing the conceptual images I would DEFINITELY have included more orbiting alien Death-Stars. Honestly, these conceptual artists have no imaginations!

    --
    The gift of death metal does not smile on the good looking.
  4. Re:That's no planet... it's a space station. by Patrick+Mannion · · Score: 2, Funny

    Well then again, it's a blue star. So... it shouldn't have that hard to detect. Damn she's hot, I'd love to get her in the solarsack.

    --
    In America, you spam computers In Soviet Russia, computers spam you!
  5. Re:Typo by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

    "It's fantastic," said Dr. David Charbonneau of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, Cambridge, Mass., lead author of a separate study on a different planet.

    Wow. They're studying extrasolar planets on other planets. Cool.

  6. In other news..... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

    The inhabitants of a distant galaxy are complaining that their TVs keep changing channel for no apparent reason.