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

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.