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First Image of Extrasolar Planet Confirmed
An anonymous reader writes "The year-long controversy about whether the European Southern Observatory had indeed captured the first picture of an extrasolar planet has apparently been resolved. Journal publication today of a fuzzy image of this Jupiter-sized, extrasolar planet led Christophe Dumas, a member of the discovery team, to say enthusiastically: 'The thrill of seeing this faint source of light in real-time on the instrument display was unbelievable. Although it is surely much bigger than a terrestrial-size object, it is a strange feeling that it may indeed be the first planetary system beyond our own ever imaged.'"
Argh, my science project is now ruined..
buffering...
It's actually (according to the BBC and eso.org) 5x the size of Jupiter, or about half the size of our sun. Calling it a mere planet may be a bit harsh - Jupiter itself is a net producer of energy (radiated = 2x incident, roughly), and it's speculated that this is due to gravity forces. This gas-giant 'planet' is presumably more active gravitationally - perhaps 'proto-sun' or 'failed sun' might be a better description (except that discovering a planet is a far greater acheivement than a tiny star...
Simon.
Physicists get Hadrons!
That, and it's orbiting a brown dwarf.
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-- W.C. Fields
E.T. phone home.
Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.
"Do not run, we are friends"
Starsucks
untill it has a starbucks
Do not try to read the dupe, thats impossible. Instead, only try to realize the truth
What truth?
There is no dupe
Here's the mirrordot link for the "picture" page in the story.
The actual page has started showing signs of fatigue due to slashdot effect, so use the above link.
Well, at least the news is only 8 months old... interesting nonetheless...
--- At my sig, unleash hell.
It's not accurate to say this object is "half" the size of the sun.
The planet in question is 5 times the mass of Jupiter. The sun is about a thousand times the mass of Jupiter.
I think you're confusing mass with diameter. Jupiter's diameter is indeed approximately one-tenth the diameter of the sun.
The key issue is whether the suspected planet is at the same distance as the brown dwarf [and I assume that we know accurately enough about the distance to the brown dwarf].
Since these stars are co-moving, it is very likely that these objects are either formed out of the same primodial materials (ie., these stars are in the same association) or gravitationally bound (i.e., the suspect planet revolves around the brown dwarf). The evidence of the co-moving alone doesn't necessarily prove that the stars are bounded by gravity, but the accuracy of their measurements probably suggest that it's pretty darn likely. Further studies are necessary to derive the orbits for sure.
Anyway, once you establish the distance, one can figure out its true brightness of the suspected planetary object. That helps you narrow down the mass of that object (which is nailed down to be about 5x the mass of Jupiter). Combined with the "color" information of the object, these scientists makes a conclusion that this is indeed a planet.
By the way, these objects are separated by the whooping 0.7 arcseconds. Its apparent seperation is 5 times greater than the apparent size of Pluto or something like that. You don't really need use the Hubble for studying something like this.
That's not a planet...
It's a space station
Why don't we just let you sleep until we spot a rock that sends out radio signals? Meanwhile, others are eager to learn as much as possible *now*.
BTW, these *are* important discoveries as they give us an insight into what kind of planetary systems are out there. Though we are only yet able to see those that have large mass planets in close orbit to the stars. This gives a possibly slightly skewed sample, but it's better than nothing.
- These characters were randomly selected.
untill it has a starbucks
R(k)
I should propably mention that we are going to be detecting those rocks when Darwin, an infrared interferometer telescope, launches in 2015.
- These characters were randomly selected.
Holy Crap!
A planet discovered by a scientist named "Dumass" and not a single +5 funny yet?
BBH
Am I the only one that saw the name "Dumas" and thought "Uranas has already been discovered"?
I actually work at the ESO, at the Technische Universitaet Muenchen in Garching, Germany. This is a major event for them up there- (I'm surprised it made /., they usually discourage it as they discouraged me from posting about the Venus Transit last year) . Generally, they have to fight hard to get funding from the government (although Europe is nicer about astronomy (as opposed to stuff like the ISS) than the US), so something like this is great. It incites public interest in astronomy, which is always needed for scientific institutions such as this.
For a brown dwarf, it's awful bright blue and green!
Update: The planet was discovered shortly after a bout of sneezing around the telescopes. New speculation has emerged that the giant planet is composed of phlegm.
That, and it's orbiting a brown dwarf.
"We prefer to be called people of extraterrestrial-melanin-enhanced-skin-vertically- challenged", said a spokesextraterrestrial.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Let's call it "Elliott" - a better name than "GPCC" for the companion of an extraterrestrial brown dwarf.
--
make install -not war
Actually, there is something to see here, but you are going to need some good adaptive optics to see it. (VLA anyone?)
-kaplanfx
Visualize Whirled Peas
Wow! I must have been under a rock these past few years. I thought the only extra-solar system stellar object to be imaged with as much clarity as this photo of a Brown Dwarf (w/ companion planet) was Betelgeuse! What other stars have been resolved so that you can make out or almost make out the disk????
Can gas planets have eruptions and eject matter (or gas) out in space?
Point the Hubble at that sucker. Either we find out a bunch of neat sciency things, or we find out its Admiral Thrawns secret hidden research facility. Either way its a win!
Party at O'zorgnax's Pub! Buy me a Slurmtini aye?
And no doubt the RIAA has already sent subpoenas and cease and desist orders for evading them for so long.
But seriously, this is spectacular. To think that there might be another planetary system within viewing distance, albeit a few small pixels is mind numbing. This is bloody brilliant.
Any suggestions on names?
..."Extrasolar planet really really confirmed, we're quite sure this time, honest".
Doesn't it make you feel good to know that our freedoms are protected by politicans, lawyers and journalists.
I don't think I agree with you about what "a little bit is"
.28 change in diameter magnatude.
In something you normally talk about in linear measurement, I might agree with you about 10%. But for a topic (like planets) where the range is variable enough that it makes sense to talk about the magnitude of the number, not the number (10^28 m etc) and where those exponents are high, 10% isn't even part of the number you're talking about. That's from a language point of view.
From a physical point of view, it's very reasonable to assume that AC might've meant diameter while those thresholds are all about mass. So your x70 mass is only x4 diameter.
The smallest sensible unit if you're talking about the magnitude (from a power of 10 POV) is x10... x5 is a fractional magnitude lost in the rounding error. (10^(.5) )^3 = a 32x mass increase. Some other posts here have said the threshold may be as low as 7x mass = 2x diameter =
Furthermore, it's a description in a book. The sense of "a little bit" should be taken in context. I don't remember the context of that book being "we should park a bunch of spaceships on it and make it implode" (or keep that from happening) Sometimes numerically big changes are "a little bit" because there's a lot of range in whatever you're talking about. On the other hand good electric motors are (taken alone) very efficient - so "a little bit" better is a tiny number. The context in the book, I believe, was "boy it's big"
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