Hubble's Exoplanet Pics Outshined by Keck's

dtolman writes "Scientists at the Keck and Gemini telescopes stole the thunder of Hubble scientists announcing the first picture of an extrasolar world orbiting a star. Hubble scientists announced today that they were able to discover an extrasolar world for the first time by taking an actual image of the newly discovered exoplanet orbiting Fomalhaut — previous discoveries have always been made by detecting changes in the parent star's movement, or by watching the planet momentarily eclipse the star — not by detecting them in images. Hubble's time to shine was overshadowed though by the Keck and Gemini observatories announcing that they had taken pictures of not just one planet, but an entire alien solar system. The images show multiple planets orbiting the star HR 8799 — 3 have been imaged so far."

Comments

Gene Wolfe fans rejoice

[CRCulver]

A planet orbiting Fomalhaut? Well, it seems Gene Wolfe was prescient in his work The Book of the New Sun when one of his characters contacts a wise civilization there on, as Wolfe uses the Arabic name, "the Fishes' Mouth".

Re:Gene Wolfe fans rejoice

[FiloEleven]

I did'nt catch that reference while reading New Sun - good eye. I was thinking of mentioning Fomalhaut system's role in the Hyperion Cantos by Dan Simmons, even though it's just a minor setting IIRC. Then I was going to tell people to check out the series because it's a fine one, but since you've mentioned The Book Of The New Sun, I'm just going to shut up and hope that more folks put it at the top of their reading lists, and then insert it again halfway down to catch what they missed before.

Re:Gene Wolfe fans rejoice

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not likely there are any civilizations existing on Fomalhault b. It's too young, big, and far away from its parent. Even the moons are unlikely given its distance from its star relative to the star's temperature.

Very true. However, recall that Jupiter's presence (along with the other gas giants) gives wayward asteroids much larger targets than the small lumps of rock in the warmer zone. The discovery of Fomalhaut b just adds another promising similarity between that system and ours.

Great explanation from Gemini directors

[G3CK0]

On Thursday 13th November 2008, Gemini Observatory in coordination with several institutions released the first images of an exo multi-planet system around star HR 8799 in the constellation of Pegasus. The discovery was made at Gemini North using the adaptive optics system ALTAIR and NIRI as the infrared imager on October 17, 2007. Follow up and confirming observations were made on the Keck II Telescope and Gemini North. Adaptive optics played a crucial role in obtaining these historic images of a young extra-solar multiple-planet system. The estimated age of the system implies planetary masses between 5 and 13 times that of Jupiter. These giant planets orbit at roughly 25, 40 and 70 times the Earth-Sun separation around their host star which is about 128 light-years from our sun. For more details see www.gemini.edu.

Re:Finally!

[eabrek]

Some description of the technique. Under ADI.

Re:Amazing

[MMatessa]

These are the first direct images ever released. Before this, all evidence was indirect (oscillating plots of star brightness as the planet periodically eclipsed the host star, for instance).

Well, except for HD 189733b, 2M1207 b and GQ Lup b.

Yes they do.

[interactive_civilian]

So planets look a lot like noise. They really aren't all that much different than the expected noise levels on the images. Especially on the first one from Fomalhaut.

From far enough away, yes. Yes they do. For example, here's Earth from just outside the solar system, and the basis for Sagan's Pale Blue Dot.

http://veimages.gsfc.nasa.gov/601/PIA00452.tif (TIFF image)

That light blue pixel on the right is us. All of us. Taken from 6.4 billion kilometers away.

Deadpixel, indeed.