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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."

4 of 113 comments (clear)

  1. Hot Stuff! by billstewart · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Not only did they discover them using infrared, but one really interesting thing about this is that it's the first time that they've directly seen light from one of the planets they discovered, as opposed to previous discoveries which have only seen the light of the star being occluded as the planet passes in front of it. Really nice.

    --

    Bill Stewart
    New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
  2. Planet "X" by H_Fisher · · Score: 3, Interesting
    If this concept works in the long run, I wonder how (if at all) it might be used to find the "tenth planet" that some scientists think might be orbiting beyond Pluto?

    If and when the Hubble is updated, could this type of gear be added, or orbited in tandem, to allow both visual and infared examination of space? (IANA astronaut, so if this sounds stupid...)

  3. Re:IR temperature reading? by astrobabe · · Score: 4, Interesting

    While clouds are significants sources of albedo, the Earth would still not appear very "hot" as our atmosphere is general is quite cool. A planned instrument for a Mars orbiter will likely contain a spectrograph which will be used to look back at Earth to give astrobiologists an idea what the atmospheres of extrasolar planets with life may look like from a distance.

  4. The ACTUAL DATA by cinnamon+colbert · · Score: 3, Interesting

    don't look entirely convincing, espcially in the second case

    http://www.spitzer.caltech.edu/Media/releases/ss c2 005-09/ssc2005-09a.shtml

    did anyone see how they discount things like solar flares