First Direct Photo of Exoplanet Confirmed

An anonymous reader noted a report confirming the first ever exoplanet actually photographed from telescopes on earth. Every other exoplanet so far 'observed' has been done by measuring wobbles of stars pulled by planetary gravity. But this one is a photograph. And that's just plain cool.

Comments

As Wil Wheaton often says

[Pojut]

Damn, I love living in the future.

Re:As Wil Wheaton often says

[The MAZZTer]

But you wrote that comment in the past!

Re:As Wil Wheaton often says

[Pojut]

When? Just now!

Re:As Wil Wheaton often says

[Anonymous Coward]

When does then become now?

Re:As Wil Wheaton often says

[commodore64_love]

And I hate living in a pre-warp culture. Come on scientists. Invent a warp drive so instead of taking blurry images, we can send a camera to that distant planet and take a photo directly.

I don't know. Maybe this is why aliens have never contacted us? Maybe they are stuck inside their local solar system, same as we are, and the distance between stars is just too big a hurdle to jump. I once read a Science story about humans that hopped on a giant ship and accelerated to llghtspeed to visit a star with an earthlike planet. The humans inboard only aged two years, but 150 years passed-away back home..... whole countries rose and fell during that timespan. Totally impractical way to explore.

Re:As Wil Wheaton often says

[Anonymous Coward]

Soon.

Re:As Wil Wheaton often says

[Pojut]

Agreed. Something like Warp from Star Trek or the Gravity Drive from Event Horizon (minus the hellish torture...or not, some people might dig that) are likely the only ways we will be able to explore beyond our solar system in a reasonable amount of time.

Or, we could just all play the "space age" in Spore at the same time :p

Re:As Wil Wheaton often says

[Anonymous Coward]

You just missed it.

Re:As Wil Wheaton often says

[Fahrvergnuugen]

But that photo is from the past...

Re:As Wil Wheaton often says

[TheKidWho]

It's only impractical now while our world is developing.

Who knows how long people will live for in the future? If we could all live to say 500 years old, then space travel would be much easier on us.

Re:As Wil Wheaton often says

[Anonymous Coward]

Let me guess - you follow him on Twatter?

Picard should have whipped his dorky little ass, then given his mom the shag of a lifetime right before his helpless eyes...

Re:As Wil Wheaton often says

[chichilalescu]

as a PhD student in physics, the interstellar travel mechanism closest to being theoretically possible that I've seen so far is the Infinite Improbability Drive.

Re:As Wil Wheaton often says

[Ukab the Great]

According to Dr Dan Streetmentioner's Time Traveller's Handbook of 1001 Tense Formations, this is the grammatically correct use of the present future tense.

Re:As Wil Wheaton often says

[Anonymous Coward]

Photos... or it didn't happen ? Yeah, that's right, where is the PHOTO of the Alien Planet ?
Might it be just 2 wobbling pixels, the public has the right to see it !

Re:As Wil Wheaton often says

[MakinBacon]

This is why we need, needed and will need that time-traveling grammar book mentioned, being mentioned and to be mentioned in Hitchhiker's guide.

Re:As Wil Wheaton often says

[commodore64_love]

Or like in the Asimov novel Robots of Dawn, maybe long-lived humans will become so afraid of death & disease that they will stop exploring completely. In that Science story the humans are born, live, and die in their homes.

Re:As Wil Wheaton often says

[commodore64_love]

In particle physics there are experiments which seem to prove faster-than-light communication is possible. So it might take 150 years to reach a star, but the camera could beam back the video instantly.

Re:As Wil Wheaton often says

[pha7boy]

even if we all live 1000 years, getting to that planet will be incredibly long and boring.

Re:As Wil Wheaton often says

[pha7boy]

footnote missing. comment will be deleted.

Re:As Wil Wheaton often says

[zerospeaks]

TRY HARDER! I only got like 50 more years of life at most, if i'm very lucky. Hurry up already!! "Once we knew it was possible we just did it, and we still don't really know how we did it" -Ender's Game [Talking about lightspeed travel]

Re:As Wil Wheaton often says

[paiute]

I once read a Science story about humans that hopped on a giant ship and accelerated to llghtspeed to visit a star with an earthlike planet. The humans inboard only aged two years, but 150 years passed-away back home..... whole countries rose and fell during that timespan. Totally impractical way to explore.

I have never heard of such a thing. Do you have a link?

Re:As Wil Wheaton often says

[Anonymous Coward]

No, he wrote that in HIS past, but his personal temporal reality exists in reverse order to our own, so from OUR perspective, he actually wrote that at some contiuously moving point somewhere in the near future. We approach that future ever closer, but never quite reaching it, until, at some point, time ceases relevancy. At that point, we reach a temporal "event horizon", and time and creation, as we understand them, simply cease to be. The less observant you are of this event, the more likely you are to actually experience it. Kind of like the concept of "corporate culture", now that I think of it.

What does the above have to do with the topic at hand? Pfft, little, until you remember that what we see in the telescope are things as they WERE, and not neccessarily as they ARE. Even light takes time to travel a distance like this, which the referenced article explains is about 700 LY away.

Before we can even consider travel to places like these, we'll need to figure out a way to get around the observable vs. actual discrepancy.

Re:As Wil Wheaton often says

[MyLongNickName]

Ummmm.... no there aren't. No experiment has ever shown that information can be transmitted faster than light or even hinted at it. you might be thinking of quantum entanglement. This commonly gets translated as "faster than light communication", but this is not accurate.

Re:As Wil Wheaton often says

[Chris Burke]

In particle physics there are experiments which seem to prove faster-than-light communication is possible.

No there aren't.

There are experiments which seem to demonstrate that things can appear to happen faster than light if and only if no information whatsoever is transmitted.

The correlation between the collapsed states of entangled particles is such a case. You can interpret the result as meaning that one particle somehow told the other about its' post-collapse state "instantly", but this can't tell you anything you didn't already know -- specifically, that the states were entangled and there is a correlation between their outcomes. You can't affect the outcome, you can't measure it in such a way that it's distinguishable from your measurement causing the collapse of the entanglement.

Re:As Wil Wheaton often says

[TheRaven64]

Quoting Orson Scott Card about light speed drive? I wonder if a Mormon is really the best source of advice about science that you could find...

Re:As Wil Wheaton often says

[MyLongNickName]

What I find most fascinating about people who want to be able to travel to exotic new worlds and find new life forms: so frequently these people spend their entire life behind a computer screen when there are so many worlds to visit here on Earth.

Re:As Wil Wheaton often says

[gsslay]

whole countries rose and fell during that timespan

Well that's your problem there. A primitive planet that is divided into "countries" that are pitted against each others and so "rise and fall" in relation to one another. That's a lot of wasted effort and pathetically parochial in the context of inter-planetary exploration.

Should we ever get beyond this maybe 150 years wouldn't matter so much.

Re:As Wil Wheaton often says

[zerospeaks]

he' a mormon? This explains a few things...

Re:As Wil Wheaton often says

[zerospeaks]

I don't want to travel to new worlds. I want to use time dilation to my advantage.

Re:As Wil Wheaton often says

[saider]

Totally impractical way to explore

That is because people's expectations are based on Star Trek, which was basically "Wagon Train to the Stars". Writers invented Warp engines so that the plot could follow a familiar theme ( "Space Boat" ) that was easy for the audience to relate to.

If we want to explore the stars, then we need to change our expectations and get ready for some seriously long voyages.

Re:As Wil Wheaton often says

[mcgrew]

You might want to check out some of the advantages of using thiotimoline as a fuel.

Re:As Wil Wheaton often says

[TheKidWho]

Yeah, doesn't sound very different from some people today who would abandon our entire manned space program because it's too dangerous.

Re:As Wil Wheaton often says

[Anonymous Coward]

Event Horizon

What a bad, bad movie. And I even dig hellish torture.

Re:As Wil Wheaton often says

[Gilmoure]

In an infinite university, all courses are possible?

Re:As Wil Wheaton often says

[RobDude]

I've noticed this as well.

The people that seem most interested in the possibility of communicating with extraterrestrial life also seem the least interested in the possibility of communicating with people right here.

And I mean, really, if you are considering travel to see exotic new worlds and cultures - there really are a lot of options right here, on Earth.

Most of the people I know that are most excited about talk of space travel and who claim they'd be willing to take a one-way ticket to Mars; haven't managed to do any sort of exploration on Earth.

Re:As Wil Wheaton often says

[CarpetShark]

Much easier on us? You want to do a 440-year round-trip across the galaxy when you're 60+? Good luck with that.

Re:As Wil Wheaton often says

[Anonymous Coward]

He either meant to type "Science Fiction" or he was reading a science fiction story and thought he was reading about a real event.

Don't discount that last possibility, I've met people who get confused like that.

Re:As Wil Wheaton often says

[Anonymous Coward]

Just like living in the same neighbourhood your entire life, which quite a lot of people will do. If the ship is big, I can't imagine it'd be any different than that.

Re:As Wil Wheaton often says

[hedwards]

But when will then be now?

Re:As Wil Wheaton often says

[Anonymous Coward]

"In that Science story the humans are born, live, and die in their homes."

Not in their mother's basement?

Re:As Wil Wheaton often says

[davester666]

Dammit. Will you people stop spying on me! I move to the moon (the far side even), and you send up some satellites to it to watch me. I move to Mars, same thing, only this time you follow me around with those stupid Rovers. Jupiter, again, another satellite [really, how did you guess which moon I was on over there].

Who should I see about getting a restraining order against everybody on an entire planet?

Re:As Wil Wheaton often says

[evocarti]

... I once read a Science story about humans that hopped on a giant ship and accelerated to llghtspeed to visit a star with an earthlike planet. The humans inboard only aged two years, but 150 years passed-away back home..... whole countries rose and fell during that timespan. Totally impractical way to explore.

I don't know that the problem is light-speed being the upper barrier to velocity. I think the problem is the length of human lives. Scale up the length of the human lifetime to a thousand, ten thousand years and those sorts of time frames are very practical.

Many of the problems we face today are due to humanity not taking the 'long-view' approach.

We could colonize the galaxy, under the speed of light, in a very reasonable time frame (cosmologically/geologically speaking) - if only the human lifespan were longer or indefinite.

Re:As Wil Wheaton often says

[gyrogeerloose]

I don't know. Maybe this is why aliens have never contacted us?

Actually, they have contacted us. Unfortunately, they landed in Arizona and were immediately deported.

Re:As Wil Wheaton often says

[CastrTroy]

No different than with most people I know who travel anywhere. Most people I know who go on regular vacations to other countries end up going to the Caribbean twice a year, and sitting on a beach. There are so many more interesting places to see in the world. Go to Europe, Japan, Africa. Visit the cities, see the people, visit the villages too. Maybe it costs more. Maybe you can only make a trip every 5 years because of the cost. But you will have a much richer experience. If all you want to do is sit on a beach and drink, you might as well just sit on your couch at home. At least you won't get skin cancer.

Re:As Wil Wheaton often says

[GMFTatsujin]

The best feature about the IID is that is only has to be a little bit possible in order to be inevitable.

Re:As Wil Wheaton often says

[CastrTroy]

But humans can reproduce. So a individual humans don't need to live 10,000 years for us to reach the stars. All we need is a ship that can sustain life for that amount of time. The people on the ship can create more people. And their predecessors will be the ones that get to the stars.

Re:As Wil Wheaton often says

[Roger W Moore]

In particle physics there are experiments which seem to prove faster-than-light communication is possible.

No there are not. There is no experimental evidence whatsoever that FTL communication is possible.

Re:As Wil Wheaton often says

[Beardo the Bearded]

Octopus.

Octopus are intelligent; they figure that they have the rough brain capacity of a four-year-old. They are alien; they live underwater, they are cephalopods, and they do not use audio communication. They are novel; I dive, and all the divers I know love to find octos.

They are closer to us than any alien could possibly be, but we can't communicate with them at all. I find it unlikely at best that we could have any communication whatsoever with a species from another solar system.

Most people on this planet never stick their heads under the water at all.

Re:As Wil Wheaton often says

[soupforare]

I dunno, I think it's one of the last good scifi/horror movies. Not anywhere near Alien, but it's up there.

Re:As Wil Wheaton often says

[Roger W Moore]

if you are considering travel to see exotic new worlds and cultures - there really are a lot of options right here, on Earth.

While that's true to some extent (they are not exotic new worlds they are exotic parts of our world) these exotic 'worlds' have already been visited by people from our own cultures repeatedly and all you have to do is go to the web and read up on what to expect. That does not mean that it is not fun to visit (I love travelling) but going to a truly new and exotic world would be very different since, if you are one of the first to go, you will not have a good idea of what to expect hence it will be far more of an adventure than visiting country X on Earth.

Re:As Wil Wheaton often says

[abigor]

Great post. I had no idea that was the case with the octopus.

Re:As Wil Wheaton often says

[chichilalescu]

well, the difference between octopus (is this the correct plural form?) and a species we might find in another solar system is that we will be searching for species that have some technology. I think it's much easier to communicate with another species if they have some form of technology, because we already have something in common. I do however want to thank you for reminding me about the octupus. My problem is that I live far away from places where I could play with apes, dolphins or octupus... By the way: what are the methods of communication that have been tried?

Re:As Wil Wheaton often says

[Anonymous Coward]

Perhaps the astronauts would get laid more easily when they come home after the 300 year round trip. I imagine the media would cover it.

I mean it's not like anyone who is already getting laid would jump on the ship.

Never underestimate what males will do for sex.

Re:As Wil Wheaton often says

[RobDude]

Except (at least in the example of Mars) we do already know a lot about the conditions on the surface. We also know a lot about the local cultures (none).

Re:As Wil Wheaton often says

[maharvey]

For sightseeing, it's hard to beat a tropical beach and booze goggles. Also, no sunshine at home, and the water's freezing cold.

Re:As Wil Wheaton often says

[Lord Ender]

Most methods of timely interstellar travel are prevented by the fact that fuel requirements increase exponentially with maximum speed. The only feasible means of interstellar travel according to our current understanding of physics is the Bussard Ramjet, which collects its fuel between the stars.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bussard_ramjet

Of course, "science" is only a few hundred years old, and 'when an elder scientist says something is impossible, he is almost certainly wrong'...

Re:As Wil Wheaton often says

[evocarti]

Yes, we can build generation-ships. We're probably capable of doing this right now, with enough economic effort.

But I propose that the problem is not solely one of technology and capability, but of cultural psychology. The organization that builds that ship would have to invest enormous amounts of resources, with no tangible return for themselves during their lifespan. The generation that spends their lives in space would have to be extraordinarily benevolent - willing to donate their lives for the sake of the species. I don't think a group like this has existed in the history of the species... nor will it.

Either the technology shifts to require less 'benevolence' on behalf of the people involved (FTL tech), or the psychology of the culture shifts (longer lifespans) to make such a tremendous investment payoff during the lifespans of the people involved. I posit that the cultural shift due to extended lifespans is more likely than FTL.

Re:As Wil Wheaton often says

[Roger W Moore]

Humans travel for the experience. Nobody knows what it would feel like to actually stand on the top of Olympus Mons and look out at the view or stare up at the cliffs from the bottom of one of the many canyon systems. Yes we can simulate the view but if that were enough then tourism on Earth would be dead because we would just look at photos.

Re:As Wil Wheaton often says

[Anonymous Coward]

How many checked that link and didn't notice that "Subjunctive" was misspelled? I fixed it.

Re:As Wil Wheaton often says

[RobDude]

I'm not disagreeing with that.

I'm just saying that, in my limited experience, the people who seem the most excited about travel to other worlds are the least likely to travel around *this* world. Even though the effort required is significantly less.

Likewise, people who seem the most excited about talking to aliens seem to be the most likely to avoid contact with people here.

I'm not against space travel or anything. I just think the dynamics of it all is very interesting.

"I want to explore, but only in the most extreme of all possible ways. Anything less than that, and I'm more content to stay at home and do nothing".

It's like a car enthusiast who refuses to drive ANYTHING other than some prototype that isn't even available yet. But he talks about it a lot, and says how great it is; but if you say, 'Hey - let's get some really awesome go-karts and tear it up!' he's all, 'Nah, I'd rather just stay here and play on my computer'.

Re:As Wil Wheaton often says

[Beardo the Bearded]

I've never seen two at a time yet, so it hasn't come up in conversation. :D Technically, it's octopi; colloquially, it's octopus; some say octopuses or octos.

There are marine biologists who specialize in cephalopods; they've tried all kids of communication, from colour flashing to sound to chemicals to just talking to them. (They're making that "ah-blah-esp-ahn-ul" sound again.)

An octopus can use tools and can manipulate locks and navigate tunnels. They're very dextrous. They build dens and other things. They don't smelt metal (an octopus with eight swords?), wear clothes (too many legs -- hard to hem), or surf the web (they love hentai) but I wouldn't be surprised if we found a smarter species down in the deep.

Actually, I'd be fucking astonished, but it would be more likely than finding an alien species in my lifetime. At least there's evidence of life on this planet.

Re:As Wil Wheaton often says

[longhairedgnome]

Woosh!

Re:As Wil Wheaton often says

[cowdung]

I hate scifi/horror.. there are far too few well done scifi movies.. why mess them up w/horror?

Re:As Wil Wheaton often says

[Dogtanian]

When does then become now?

Soon.

Yes, but How Soon is Now?

Re:As Wil Wheaton often says

[Dogtanian]

Most people I know who go on regular vacations to other countries end up going to the Caribbean twice a year, and sitting on a beach. There are so many more interesting places to see in the world. Go to Europe

Here in Europe there are plenty of culture-free sunny beach tourist destinations too. I assume you aren't suggesting Americans fly many times further to sit in front of rows of hotel blocks on a Costa del Sol beach though?

If all you want to do is sit on a beach and drink, you might as well just sit on your couch at home.

Except that you're on your couch at home, and not on holiday on a nice, sunny beach.

Some people like that sort of thing. Get over it. You don't? Fine- it's not your holiday.

You remind me of the type of people described in Stuff [upper middle class American] white people like. God forbid that someone should simply want to go on holiday to relax.

Re:As Wil Wheaton often says

[Roger W Moore]

I agree the phenomenon is interesting - I was simply trying to possibly explain it as a "I can find out all the details of going to X on the net so why do I need to go" type of attitude whereas something like travel to another planet would be so new and so different that you would not be able to research it in enough detail beforehand to know exactly what you would find. Hence it would be far more exciting and perhaps exciting enough to encourage a few jaded armchair web tourists to actually travel.

For example I love to travel and regularly do but I tend to go to more developed countries even when I have a choice of destination. This is partly because, while say Africa would be different so too would say Sweden. However it is a lot easier to travel to Sweden and see the sights and sounds there than Africa where you have to worry about crime, vaccinations, political stability, basic amenities etc. However give me the chance to visit planet X which has the same travel concerns as Africa but which is a lot more different and less well known and I'd probably want to brave those same 'risks' to see it.

So is it so unreasonable to expect that the the effect might be that some are more cautious than me on the risk vs. reward travel scale, just as there are others more adventurous than me? In this case an alien planet might be different enough that they could imagine themselves making the effort to travel there....even if they don't actually do it even if the opportunity arose! So definitely interesting observation but perhaps understandable?

Re:As Wil Wheaton often says

[Anonymous Coward]

You know the reason we haven't been contacted yet. Everybody does:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Trek_First_Contact

Because we can't see Venus at night....

[djsmiley]

Wait a second.

I can see venus at night - I can take a photo my with my camera.

Is there some weird definition of "Alien" that I dont know of?

Re:Because we can't see Venus at night....

[Anonymous Coward]

I think it has to do with outside the solar system

Re:Because we can't see Venus at night....

[Surkow]

Outside our solar system perhaps?

Re:Because we can't see Venus at night....

[just_another_sean]

Alien, in this context, = outside of our solar system. As in too far for you to take a picture.

Re:Because we can't see Venus at night....

[Buggz]

Is there some weird definition of "Alien" that I dont know of?

Usually it means extra-terrestrial, but in this case they mean extra-solar (a word also used in the article). I'll assume the guy who came up with the headline is not the guy who wrote the article.

Re:Because we can't see Venus at night....

[Anonymous Coward]

"Extra-solar" planet is implied, dj smiley. I have been observing other planets with the naked eye for decades now...

Re:Because we can't see Venus at night....

[AnonymousClown]

Wait a second.

I can see venus at night - I can take a photo my with my camera.

Is there some weird definition of "Alien" that I dont know of?

Yes. The planet is claimed by either the Mexicans or the Canadians.

Re:Because we can't see Venus at night....

[mcvos]

If there were actual aliens on Venus, we'd have found them by now.

Re:Because we can't see Venus at night....

[Chrisq]

Alien, in this context, = outside of our solar system. As in too far for you to take a picture.

You are making quite an assumption about where the GP poster lives and is posting from. Beam me up dismiley!

Re:Because we can't see Venus at night....

[Anonymous Coward]

Like the word "ironic", the meaning of "alien" is quite open to interpretation. In this case alien being outside our solar system.

Nothing wrong with this usage.

Re:Because we can't see Venus at night....

[Yvanhoe]

Is there some weird definition of "Alien" that I dont know of?

"That you can't even dream of visiting physically one day"

Re:Because we can't see Venus at night....

[Anonymous Coward]

I have been observing other planets with the naked eye for decades now...

Wow, don't you ever sleep?

Re:Because we can't see Venus at night....

[Anonymous Coward]

Venus used to be alien, until we landed something on it. Now we own that rock.

Re:Because we can't see Venus at night....

[mcgrew]

Is there some weird definition of "Alien" that I dont know of?

"Alien" can mean different things in different contexts. I've used this disparity in more than one journal.

Re:Because we can't see Venus at night....

[Nadaka]

Probably not. We have done little more than radar map the surface of Venus. We can't get an image from orbit and our probes can only last minutes at most in the heat, pressure and acidity. Don't get me wrong, I don't think that we would find life there if we had a better way of looking, but Venus isn't an easy place to explore.

Mars on the other hand is fairly easy to explore. We have not observed any current life, but there at least some fairly good indications that life once existed there.

Re:Because we can't see Venus at night....

[Laser Dan]

Is there some weird definition of "Alien" that I dont know of?

Hey I'm legally an "alien" according to the Japanese government.
I even have an official "alien registration card" to prove it!

Photo dates from 2008

[mbone]

The key word in the title is "confirmed." Readers may remember that there were 2 separate sets of planets photographed in papers published in 2008. Now, we are sure (not that there was much doubt) that one of them is truly orbiting its primary star.

Re:Photo dates from 2008

[Rogerborg]

Well, if you want to get technically correct - the best kind of correct - then the title should be "First Confirmation of Direct Photo of Alien Planet", not "First Direct Photo of Alien Planet Finally Confirmed", since it most certainly is not the first direct photograph of an alien planet.

We photographed many, many alien planets before this one: every time anyone pointed a camera at the sky, in fact. We've just not spotted any planets in those other images (yet).

Re:Photo dates from 2008

[Flea of Pain]

We just need to use the good old CSI zoom and enhance! We'll find many more!

Re:Photo dates from 2008

[Anonymous Coward]

not sure I agree with this
If you take a digital photo of the sky, and the (to simplify) background is 20 bits/pixel, and the planets contribute less then 1 bit/pixel, then the pixel with the planet would be 20 bits.
So there weren't actually anyplanets in the photo

Re:Photo dates from 2008

[Idiomatick]

All camera's get 1billion mega-pixel just police get access to the majority of it, regular users only get the degraded 3megapixel versions. Duhhh. I don't know why people find CSI hard to follow.

Re:Photo dates from 2008

[sorak]

We just need to use the good old CSI zoom and enhance! We'll find many more!

But won't they all be covered in semen and blood stains?

Re:Photo dates from 2008

[Anonymous Coward]

We photographed many, many alien planets before this one: every time anyone pointed a camera at the sky, in fact.

No we did not. Just because the planet was in the angle of view of a camera does not mean that camera captured a picture of the planet. No film or sensor has infinite resolution. There is a minimum grain or pixel size, and if the planet is perceptually smaller than that size (guaranteed if it's outside the solar system), it is lost in the averaging of the exposure of that grain or pixel. You are in no measurable way capturing a picture of that planet.

Re:Photo dates from 2008

[RobDude]

But they use a super-edition of WinZip (apparently, if you actually pay for it, it becomes about a million times better at compressing things - but only the US government bothered to find out).

So the billion megapixels take up, roughly, the same size as a crappy cell phone pic.

It's amazing.

Re:Photo dates from 2008

[M8e]

We just need to use the good old CSI zoom and enhance! We'll find many more!

But won't they all be covered in panspermia and organic compounds?

FTFY

Re:Photo dates from 2008

[mbone]

We photographed many, many alien planets before this one: every time anyone pointed a camera at the sky, in fact. We've just not spotted any planets in those other images (yet).

Maybe (in a handful of all of the millions of images taken of astronomical objects), but I would doubt it. Exo-Planetary imagery is tough and is generally done of new systems in the IR (young planets are hot, and thus glow brighter). If by "photographed" you mean "an image with at least one pixel that could be recognized as an exo-planet if only we knew where to look," it's not likely that even the Hubble has captured any planets unawares. It's for sure not common.

Re:Photo dates from 2008

[repapetilto]

There are 2 separate sets of planets photographed in papers published in 2008. Now we are sure (not that there was much doubt) that one of them is truly orbiting its primary star. What is the probability that the other set of planets is truly orbiting its primary star?

Re:Photo dates from 2008

[Rogerborg]

I did say technically correct. Also: "pixel"? Y'all from the future's past?

Good

[elrous0]

The ones in our solar system were getting so lame.

Re:Good

[daveime]

In fact, we even had to relegate Pluto to the status of a lump of ice just to keep people interested and talking about them.

Re:Good

[Anonymous Coward]

I know how we can make them more interesting. Let's put people on them! It'll be just like a reality show, except real!

Re:Good

[elrous0]

I vote we use the cast of "Jersey Shore," and not give them spacesuits.

Re:Good

[Enderandrew]

Pluto will always be a planet in my heart.

Re:Good

[The_Wilschon]

You should join (and donate to!) the special interest group a former colleague of mine founded. It's called "People Outraged Over Pluto". Soon those legislative fatcats will have to eat their words, after Pluto's triumphal return!

Re:Good

[Deus.1.01]

Now hold on there...
http://science.slashdot.org/story/10/06/30/120221/First-Direct-Photo-of-Alien-Planet-Confirmed?art_pos=1&art_pos=1#
Lets first see if there is meremaids on Europa.

Re:Good

[Enderandrew]

Can I like P.O.O.P. on Facebook?

Re:Good

[Idiomatick]

Holy shit, your heart must be fucking huge.

Re:Good

[Low Ranked Craig]

And the Kardashians...

Wow...

[StudMuffin]

This makes me happy in a way I find very difficult to describe.

Re:Wow...

[pinkushun]

I know exactly what you mean. Heavenly bodies get me excited, too!

Re:Wow...

[Anonymous Coward]

OH, I thought he was just has aspergers' and emotions are alien to him.

But you added a dimension every body can relate to and experience a certain degree of excitement...

Re:Wow...

[Anonymous Coward]

Sir, Put the Vaseline down.

Adaptic optics FTW

[OneAhead]

I see this as a big triumph of adaptic optics. This picture was not made by a space telescope, but by an earth-based one!

Re:Adaptic optics FTW

[eldavojohn]

I see this as a big triumph of adaptic optics. This picture was not made by a space telescope, but by an earth-based one!

Indeed, hope the liquid mirror option becomes practical and viable so we can achieve more amazing photographs and data like this. Although I have to wonder why they didn't use an orbiting satellite like Hubble to avoid Earth's atmosphere when photographing such an amazing thing. Have terrestrial adaptive optic solutions already caught up with orbiting satellites?

Re:Adaptic optics FTW

[spidercoz]

Yes. But space optics will take a big leap once the JWST goes up.

Re:Adaptic optics FTW

[MBGMorden]

IIRC, Hubble's mirror, despite not having to deal with atmospheric conditions, is much smaller than that of many terrestrial observatories. As such if you can apply adaptive optics techniques, you still have more usable light on the ground based telescopes.

I personally just say we take the best of both worlds - I want a lunar based observatory with a 25 meter aperture. No need for adaptive optics, and FAR more light gathering capability than our current telescopes. We'll figure out how to pay for it later :) (sadly, I'm sure for the price of the Iraq war we COULD have such a piece of hardware).

Re:Adaptic optics FTW

[rwllama]

Adaptive optics works great at infrared wavelengths. It does not (yet) do well at visible wavelengths. Even the 2.5 meter mirror of Hubble has better resolution at visible wavelengths than the 10 meter Keck mirror due to atmospheric blurring. Further, adaptive optics is only effective over small fields of view (such as a single star and planet). One can not take a wide field view of a nebula or a galaxy and get a high resolution adaptive optics view over the whole field.

Re:Adaptic optics FTW

[Kreuzfeld]

Hubble has better resolution at visible wavelengths, but remember we're seeing the planet's thermal radiation and not reflected (visible) light -- so the planet is over 10 times fainter in the visible than at at infrared wavelengths (Figure 6 in the paper). Hubble can also see into the infrared, but because it is smaller than the largest ground-based telescopes Hubble does not offer the best resolution in the infrared.

Re:Adaptic optics FTW

[Chris Burke]

I personally just say we take the best of both worlds - I want a lunar based observatory with a 25 meter aperture. No need for adaptive optics, and FAR more light gathering capability than our current telescopes. We'll figure out how to pay for it later :)

Use a design like the Hobbey-Eberly or Keck scopes, constructing a very large mirror out of many smaller hexagonal pieces. Launch the hexes and components of the support structure individually into earth orbit, dock and refuel the rockets at the conveniently waiting orbital fuel depots, then send em off to the moon for a fraction of the cost of a rocket capable of lifting a 25-foot telescope. On-site assembly of the telescope is left as an exercise for the space agency who just happens to be newly focused on figuring such things out. :)

(sadly, I'm sure for the price of the Iraq war we COULD have such a piece of hardware).

Yes, but as big a fan as I am of the concept of us hypothetically not having spent all that money, the reality is that even if we hadn't, there's no way most of the proposed alternative uses would have been green-lighted.

Re:Adaptic optics FTW

[RabidMoose]

I don't have an argument against the wavelength limitations, but this photo shows what adaptive optics can do over a somewhat wide field. Ground-based telescopes also enjoy the benefit of being much, much easier to repair and/or upgrade.

Besides, isn't it going to be ultimately more beneficial to be able to image "small" fields, such as individual solar systems or planets? Not that we have to choose, we've got both ground-based and orbiting telescopes, and that's a good thing.

Re:Adaptic optics FTW

[drerwk]

I think you need to consider integrated light gathering time. If Hubble is looking at something towards the poles, it can remain fixed on the target for days, the Hubble Deep Field exposure was 11 days long. For most terrestrial scopes you have maybe 6 hours of exposure. Hubble 2.4 meter mirror: Gemini has an 8.1 meter mirror. My naive estimate is (2.4)^2/(8.1)^2 = 0.08. So would have to spend 10x the observing time. And this assumes Hubble has the requisite insturments.

Re:Adaptic optics FTW

[michaelwv]

The atmosphere is not a friend to astronomers. Both emission from and absorption by the atmosphere are significant problems for ground-based astronomy. The background from just the brightness of the sky is the largest contaminate in ground-based images. From space Hubble enjoys a sky background that is at least 100 times fainter. So to get a given sensitivity, Hubble can observe things in one hour that might take a ground-based telescope 10-20 hours.

Re:Adaptic optics FTW

[michaelwv]

Telescopes on the moon only make sense if you can build them out of local lunar materials. Otherwise you're 0) Building telescope components on Earth 1) Launching telescope components into Earth orbit 2) Transfer to Lunar orbit and Landing them on the moon 3) Assembling them Skip step 2. It's easier to design a telescope to be in microgravity then something that has to contend with a significant gravitational field.

Aint the first

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not the first direct imaging of an exoplanet. ... seems like they just don't know what they are talking about..

Here,s the first planet image:
http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fomalhaut_b

Re:Aint the first

[yakumo.unr]

From TFA "first ever directly photographed by telescopes on Earth" Formalhaut_b was imaged from Hubble.

And it's such a bright little planet

[Lucas123]

It must be filled with sunflower people.

Alien

[Anonymous Coward]

Which 'aliens' come from this planet?

The small grey ones? The ones that burst out of peoples chests? ET ? Vogons?

Re:Alien

[OhHellWithIt]

Of course it's an alien planet! It's not Earth, for crying out loud!

What's next, an article headlined Canada Full of Foreigners? (I'm writing from the U.S. perspective, which is that all other countries are full of foreigners.)

Re:Alien

[mcgrew]

Canada is full of aliens. The ISS is full of space aliens.

Re:Alien

[OhHellWithIt]

I'm going to share that one with my friend who gave me the "other countries are full of foreigners" joke. Thanks!

Just a bit blurry

[Drakkenmensch]

But that's just because Bigfoot and Elvis are visible in the corner.

Mulder and Scully in agreement

[ewg]

Finally, an extraterrestrial revelation Mulder and Scully can agree on.

Pluto

[Ukab the Great]

There's an irony in that we can now see extrasolar planets but we still can't get a really decent the smallest (dwarf)planet in our solar system.

Re:Pluto

[rwllama]

That depends on what you mean by "a really decent" image. We can see surface features on Pluto, albeit still a very fuzzy view. These exoplanets are unresolved - we can see they are there, but we can see absolutely no details. Further, recognize that a Jupiter-size planet is over 100,000 km in diameter, while the largest Kuiper Belt objects (KBOs, which includes Pluto) are at best 3,000 km. Surface area goes as the square of the diameter, so you can see that the amount of light reflected will be vastly larger for a giant planet than for even the biggest KBOs. Plus KBOs tend to be rather dark and reflect little of the light that hits them (low albedo). BUT, this will change in 2015 when New Horizons gets to the Pluto/Charon system and shows the details.

Re:Pluto

[Anonymous Coward]

You seem to have accidentally a word in there somewhere.

Re:Pluto

[gr8dude]

I was wondering about the same thing.

This is the best photo of Pluto currently available: http://www.tau.ac.il/~morris/03411203/chapter5/Pluto_color.jpg

Why is it not possible to point the same telescope towards Pluto and get a better image? Are there some constraints?

Slashdotted

[dimethylxanthine]

Somebody managed to save a copy of the image before this got published here: http://www.proxywhore.com/invboard/lofiversion/index.php/t205588.html

Must love the third post (by leia)...

Re:Slashdotted

[L4t3r4lu5]

If you're not happy clicking a link with the word "whore" in the link, here's one from a local US news website: http://www.ksee24.com/news/local/97450059.html

Re:Slashdotted

[dimethylxanthine]

As if the word "whore" hasn't been mentioned enough times here. (exactly 1700 if you don't want to click on the "enough times" syntagm).

I figured it would have spiced up the day of at least a few ./'ers... :-)

Re:Slashdotted

[dimethylxanthine]

I agree, that may have upset some people also, thanks. (though they should know where they come to get their news, heh)

Inner planets

[MrKaos]

If there is a (probably) gas giant that far out I wonder what the likehood is of any smaller planets inside that planet's orbit(?)

Re:Inner planets

[Bruha]

We'll the problem becomes that that planet which could possibly be just a brown dwarf which I've seen estimates have to be 8-10 the mass of Jupiter. It's 300 AU from it's parent star which means that star must be massive or we have a picture of a brown dwarf. What I'd like to see is it's orbit, and if it's orbiting based on their masses would it be possible for planet formations in the middle or is there a debris field between them because their gravity wells prevent what's left to condense into planets.

While I applaud them finding these planets, I would be more interested in anything within 60ly of Earth, these are the systems that would possibly be hearing our transmissions, and projects like SETI which watch the entire sky, should also have some sort of focus on the closer systems within our radiation envelope that might be responding. Find a system, and listen to it.

Other Direct Images of Exoplanets Exist

[rwllama]

There are several direct images of exoplanets available. Hubble took one of a planet around Fomalhaut, which was announced the same day that Keck announced three planets around HR 8799 (Nov 13, 2008). The next week, ESO announced a possible planet around Beta Pictoris, which has recently been confirmed. What these folks at Gemini are saying is that they announced a possible direct image earlier in 2008, which they have now confirmed, so theirs was really the first. It is a game of "who got the first direct image of a planet around another star?". It doesn't really matter, but it is very cool that we can now directly see not only the 8 planets in our solar system, but also at least 6 more in other solar systems. At some pivotal point in the near future we will have more pictures of planets outside our solar system than within it!

Re:Other Direct Images of Exoplanets Exist

[demonbug]

At some pivotal point in the near future we will have more pictures of planets outside our solar system than within it!

I doubt it. There are an awful lot of people taking pictures of (portions) of the Earth.

Or did you mean pictures of more planets outside our solar system than within?

This proves one thing....

[Anonymous Coward]

That God wants American voters to support the Republican candidate in Idaho this November.

Things that make you go hmmmm....

[PmanAce]

If we can see their Uranus, can they see ours?

Quite a size

[gborland]

Wow, that star is only 1" diameter, and they still managed to photograph it across all those light years? THAT's impressive!

Re:Quite a size

[andrewd18]

What's worse is those poor, crispy aliens living on the planet; they're orbiting only 1 inch away from their star!

Kepler?

[zoso1132]

Why does the text say all other observed planets have been discovered using the "wobble" method? Have we forgotten Kepler and COROT?!

Re:Kepler?

[rwllama]

Yes, the text is wrong. There are several methods for detecting the presence of an exoplanet, though the "wobble" (aka radial velocity) method has so far been the dominant one. One can also other methods like transits (like Kepler), astrometry, gravitational lensing, and pulsar timing. After Kepler has completed its mission, there will likely be more planets detected by transits than by any other method.

HMMM.

[Dr.D.IS.GREAT]

Maybe we should be careful which planets we take pictures of. If star trek ever taught me anything, most xenofolk dont like their picture taken!

Who writes this stuff?

[joeyblades]

> first ever alien planet actually photographed...

Well, technically this is not the first alien planet photographed. That honor would probably go to Venus. However, this is the first exoplanet ever photographed, but it's old news since the first photographs of Fomalhaut's planet were taken in 2008...

Slow news day or something???

How big a telescope do we need to see cities?

[io333]

I've been wondering for twenty years at least: how big a telescope do we need to build, in space, or on the dark side of the moon, or even on earth, to see cities on an earthlike planet somewhere out there?

And why are we not building one instead of wasting all the money on welfare, manned space exploration of a our mostly dead solar system, and more missiles so we can blow this place earth up even more times than we already can (I think we destroy the earth up to 6 times now?)

The main problem with our space program is that for 100 years we've been stuck with the rocket equation and 2% at best payloads. Ion engines give a little more hope for an interstellar probe someday...

If we found some more living earths out there, maybe our best and brightest might expend their brainpower on coming up with a better engine for space travel, rather than investment banking and law.

So how big a telescope do we need? Let's start building it!

Re:How big a telescope do we need to see cities?

[rwllama]

Take a look at the ATLAST concept for a telescope that could be launched in the 2025-2030 timeframe. It comes closest to what you are looking for.

Re:How big a telescope do we need to see cities?

[io333]

ATLAST is interesting, it will detect "signatures" of life. That's not what I'm talking about, I'm thinking something that could look at a planet 100 light years away and photograph "people" (!) walking around on the streets? Can somebody calculate how big it would have to be? Say it's 500 meters... well then let's just build a 500 meter scope of some sort and put it on the moon, or wherever. It would be the greatest technological challenge of all time maybe, but with the greatest rewards of knowledge of all time too!

Re:How big a telescope do we need to see cities?

[Stenchwarrior]

I think just to be able to see footprints on the moon left by the astronauts you would need a lens about 1800 feet in diameter. I'm sure someone smarter than me can give a better answer, but the gist is that you would need one huge fucking telescope to see cities on a planet outside of our solar system. Bigger than we could probably ever build.

Maybe an array of large telescopes, but I think you're still asking a lot.

Re:How big a telescope do we need to see cities?

[rwllama]

OK - Here's the math ...

100 light-years = 1 quadrillion kilometers -- You want a 1 meter resolution at that distance, so you need an angular resolution alpha, where tan(alpha) = 1 / 10^18 --> alpha = 5.7 x 10^-17 degrees

Let's use Hubble as a scaling proxy. It has a 2.5 meter mirror and 1/20th of an arc second resolution. Converting units, that resolution is 1 / (20*60*60) = 1.4 x 10^-5 degrees. Now, simply scale to get the desired resolution and you have the diameter of the mirror = 2.5 * 1.4 x 10^-5 / 5.7 x 10^-17

The diameter you want is 614 million kilometers, or more than 4 times the distance between Earth and the Sun. Good luck building that.

Re:How big a telescope do we need to see cities?

[Sygnus]

I think the closest we'll get to seeing cities on alien worlds through a telescope anytime soon (as in the next century or two), is by observing city lights on the night side of the planet.

Re:How big a telescope do we need to see cities?

[nu1x]

I don't know how big, but my guess would be non-engineerable in current day means (think Ringworld complexity and resources). Also, at that hypothetical resolution, I would guess cosmic dust (H+ ions) would severely obstruct your view. Just guessing based on my intuition - someone could calculate the theoretical mirror size needed for that, as say, for 1 telescope image pixel needed for 1 1 meter ET display. 500 meters ? I think not :P

Re:How big a telescope do we need to see cities?

[Anonymous Coward]

"And why are we not building one instead of wasting all the money on welfare"

If we'd just stop wasting money on war we'd have enough for everything else, including faring well.

Oh, and there isn't really any manned space exploration going on, although the private don't-waste-taxmoney-on-welfare-give-it-to-us-instead wannabe space exploration sector would like to spend large amounts of our money on that.

Re:How big a telescope do we need to see cities?

[waveclaw]

Why build when you can visit? As any relativistic physicist would note, the largest lens in the Solar system is the sun

Re:How big a telescope do we need to see cities?

[MobyDisk]

I have always wondered this myself, but I guesstimate that it would require a lens the size of the Earth. Or the Sun. Or something impossible like that.

The problem is that you can't get details from long exposures. These far-off objects require exposures that are hours long. Imagine taking a 5-hour long exposure of a soccer game: all the players would be blurred. Now imagine that the players are running at the speed of a planet: upwards of 65,000 miles per hour. That is going to be one heck of a blurry picture.

So here is my back-of-the-napkin calculation:
This article says they photographed an exoplanet using an 8 meter telescope, with a 4 hour exposure. To get a good picture of a moving object, you need about 1/30th of a second. So we need a lot more light, which means we need a larger telescope. That 8 meter telescope (pretending it is just a circle) is 8*8*3.14 ~= 200 square meters. To get the same amount of light in a 1 second exposure would require 14,400 times more area. (14,400 seconds in 4 hours). Add another factor of 30 to get 1/30th of a second exposure, so the telescope is now 3,456,000 times bigger than the original 200 meter telescope. The exoplanet pictures we have are only a few pixels. So let's say we wanted a 1 megapixel image of the planet, so we need about 1 million times more light, so lets increase the surface area of the telescope another million times. So now the lens is 3,450,000,000,000 * 200 meters = 690,000,000,000,000 meters, which is slightly more surface area than the entire surface of the earth.

And that just gets you a 1 megapixel image of the planet. That won't show you a city. And I bet a 1/30th exposure would be too slow at the speed a planet moves - it would still be too blurry. So I think my estimate of something the size of the Sun was pretty close!

Re:How big a telescope do we need to see cities?

[imakemusic]

I'm no expert but I think you'd basically need one bigger than earth. They are working on a way to use several smaller telescopes that are somehow linked to each other so that they act as one big telescope but this won't be online for a while yet (2015 or so IIRC). I feel you frustration but they are trying!

(note: all 'facts' in this comment come from a New Scientist article I read about 6 months ago)

Re:How big a telescope do we need to see cities?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm pulling numbers out of my ass here, but given how big a telescope is needed to even get a clear picture of the next planet over beside ours, I imagine to see the details of a planet around another star, it'd probably have to be far bigger than Jupiter itself, if not spanning the entire solar system.

At which point, we may not have enough... y'know... materials on earth to build it.

Re:How big a telescope do we need to see cities?

[Chowderbags]

Formula for maximum resolution of a lens:
sin(theta) = 1.22 (wavelength / diameter of lens aperture)

Moving things around we get:
1.22 * wavelength / sin(theta) = diameter

1.22 * wavelength / sin(tan^-1(resolution length / distance to object))

With a wavelength of 500 nanometers (visible light), a resolution of a kilometer (might be enough to see that there's something interesting there), at a distance of 20 light years (the nearest known extrasolar planet is 10.4 light years, so let's be generous and assume that there's some sort of life within twice that distance).

The lens on the telescope would have to be over 115000 kilometers across, almost twice the radius of Saturn. Wolfram Alpha calculation. Up the distance and lower the desired resolution for a more realistic picture of what it would take (100 meters resolution at 200 light years means a lens diameter 17 times the radius of the sun. We'll have finished the Dyson Sphere long before we build that.)

Re:How big a telescope do we need to see cities?

[io333]

Oh wow. Thanks to all of you for all of the calculations. I see the problem now.

Re:How big a telescope do we need to see cities?

[io333]

Now THAT is interesting!!!

I wonder if a smaller telescope could detect say, sodium or mercury vapor lamp spectral emissions on the dark side of a planet...

Re:How big a telescope do we need to see cities?

[John Hasler]

> The diameter you want is 614 million kilometers...

That's the aperature you need for the specified resolution but you don't necessarily need that much collecting area (though it could be achieved via gravitational lensing).

I suspect that the OP's original requirement (imaging cities) could be achieved with a few dozen kilometer-scale mirrors seperated by a few million kilometers.

Re:How big a telescope do we need to see cities?

[evilviper]

I've been wondering for twenty years at least: how big a telescope do we need to build, in space, or on the dark side of the moon, or even on earth, to see cities on an earthlike planet somewhere out there?

That pre-supposes there are cities on other planets out there... That's pure wishful thinking as much as anything else. Even if there are forms of life, who says it's intelligent, and who says we'd recognize it if we were looking right at it from a distance?

I expect that it would lead to public outrage in any case: "Why are we wasting money building this giant telescope and not using it here on more immediate problems, like public welfare?!"

The answer is, it's beyond our technology right now. If nothing else, interstellar gas clouds and the like will obscure far too much to get that kind of resolution. Advanced technology may improve this in the distant future, but for now, you're out of luck.

And why are we not building one instead of wasting all the money on welfare, manned space exploration of a our mostly dead solar system, and more missiles so we can blow this place earth up even more times than we already can (I think we destroy the earth up to 6 times now?)

None of the above is a "waste" of money. Each has some benefits, all of which much more immediate than any possible benefit of an ultra-massive telescope.

The main problem with our space program is that for 100 years we've been stuck with the rocket equation and 2% at best payloads. Ion engines give a little more hope for an interstellar probe someday...

Ion engines are an improvement, but the problem with space travel isn't a few watts of propulsion in space... It's lifting the whole thing out of the atmosphere. If that was free, you'd see aircraft-carrier-sized spacecraft flying all over the solar system by now.

There are several possible ways to improve this equation, a Cramjet holds out the most immediate possibility of drastically reducing cost and necessary overhead and infrastructure. In the longer-term, the space elevator holds the promise of making orbit absolutely dirt cheap.

Re:How big a telescope do we need to see cities?

[John Hasler]

> The lens on the telescope would have to be over 115000 kilometers across..

No, the aperture would have to be 115000 km. The Keck telescope, for example, has a maximum aperture of 85m but each mirror is "only" 10m in diameter. You would need a substantial collecting area to get an adequate signal to noise ratio, but not that large (though gravitational lenses can be much larger than that).

Re:How big a telescope do we need to see cities?

[mcgrew]

And why are we not building one instead of wasting all the money on welfare, manned space exploration of a our mostly dead solar system, and more missiles so we can blow this place earth up even more times than we already can

These days, welfare is for corporations, not people. Even LINK is a subsidy to McDonald's and WalMart, who because of it don't have to pay their people a living wage. IINM good science is being done on the ISS. As to missles, they're actually reducing the number of nukes, but increasing the non-planet killing conventional bombs.

I think I read somewhere last month that we're spending as much on Iraq and Afghanistan in a single day as we spend on NASA in a year. There's where your savings should come from, not starving the WalMart guy.

The main problem with our space program is that for 100 years we've been stuck with the rocket equation and 2% at best payloads.

We haven't been doing it for 100 years; the airplane was first flown 107 years ago. Rocketry came about in 1936, 74 years ago. Sputnik was launched in 1957, and that could be seen as the birth of space rocketry, only 53 years. And we're working on ion drives.

Re:How big a telescope do we need to see cities?

[Anonymous Coward]

I've been wondering for twenty years at least: how big a telescope do we need to build, in space, or on the dark side of the moon, or even on earth, to see cities on an earthlike planet somewhere out there?

There is no dark side of the moon, really. As a matter of fact, it's all dark.

Re:How big a telescope do we need to see cities?

[Chowderbags]

Fair enough. I looked this up on wikipedia this morning from only a vague recollection of high school physics. Mostly I just remembered that the size of a telescope required to see detail that far away is absurdly large for the foreseeable future.

Why bother

[MacGyver2210]

When I went to click on this link, I told myself "This better not just be another glowing dot". As usual, I was severely disappointed.

Also, 500 Light Years?

So even if we achieve FTL travel it's gonna be 40 lifetimes before we get there, not including the time to send any information back? This is where potential space travel funding is going?

Very sad.

Re:Why bother

[Chris Burke]

When I went to click on this link, I told myself "This better not just be another glowing dot". As usual, I was severely disappointed.

Sorry, but expect to be disappointed for a very, very long time.

This is where potential space travel funding is going?

No? It's where telescope funding is going.

Very sad.

Yeah, it's very sad to learn more about the universe, to be able to study other solar systems besides our own, to discover what kinds there are and how they form.

That's sad... in opposite world. Or lack-of-inquisitiveness world, aka boring world.

MOD PARENT UP

[DriedClexler]

Agreed. And when I clicked on the link, I expected to see a *planet*. What I got was ...

A planet outside of our solar system, said to be the first ever directly photographed by telescopes on Earth, has been officially confirmed to be orbiting a sun-like star, according to follow-up observations.

The alien planet is eight times the mass of Jupiter and orbits at an unusually great distance from its host star -- more than 300 times farther from the star than our Earth is from the sun. ... The planet has an estimated temperature of over 2,700 degrees Fahrenheit

Um, we already have a name for a massive sun-like star ... it's called a star. The fact that orbits another star doesn't make it somehow a planet. Am I missing something here?

Re:MOD PARENT UP

[Nadaka]

Yes you are. It isn't a star because 8 times the mass of jupiter is not sufficient for sustainable fusion. It isn't even really in the size range for unsustainable fusion believed to occure during the formation of brown dwarves in the 13-80 jupiter range.

Re:MOD PARENT UP

[Chris Burke]

What are you talking about? The planet, which is 8 Jupiter masses and nothing like a star, is orbiting a sun-like star.

well only sort of...

[snooo53]

About the only thing certain about those entanglement experiments is that there are no hidden local variables, so we know there is some sort of link between entangled particles that seems to work in spooky FTL ways. But no actual controllable information has been transferred FTL. Sure, quantum states of particles may have been, but we don't get to choose those without breaking the link, so it's useless as a communication medium. There's some ideas out there that MAY be able to exploit the statistical nature of the experiments to do it, but thus far we're stuck with c as an upper limit

Orbital period

[Chowderbags]

FTA:

"This difference, however, will be "very small," said the study's co-author Marten van Kerkwijk of the University of Toronto, since the fastest possible orbital period is more than one thousand years.

If the period of rotation for two bodies is T = 2 * pi * (((length of semi-major axis)^3)/(G * (M1+M2))), then the time works out to be 5615 years and change. Anyone know why they're low balling the estimate so much?

Re:Orbital period

[John Hasler]

> Anyone know why they're low balling the estimate so much?

Because the orbit might be very eccentric.

Re:Orbital period

[Chowderbags]

Even if right now it's at it's maximum distance and it were skimming the surface of the star on the short end, it would still end up being a 1985 year trip. Calculation.

did anyone get...

[Anonymous Coward]

the planet's permission to take the photos?

No, I thought not.

To Arms!!

[jzarling]

Paraphrase Jack Handey's Deep Thoughts -
Whether they ever find life there or not, I think 1RXS 1609 should be considered an enemy planet.

This submission is inaccurate

[The Bad Astronomer]

OK folks, this submission is pretty misleading about a lot of stuff. Here's the real poop (get the details on my blog):

In 2005, a planet was directly imaged orbiting a brown dwarf. That's not a sun-like star, but it was the first direct image of an exoplanet.

In 2008, it was announced that Hubble spotted a planet orbiting Fomalhaut. That's a star hotter and more massive than the Sun, but still sun-like. The images were taken in 2004 and 2006 and it took a while to make sure they were right.

However, those were taken from space. Also in 2008 images were taken of planets orbiting the sun-like star HR8799 using the ground-based Gemini telescope in Hawaii.

With me so far? The news today is from observations also taken in 2008, also taken by the Gemini 'scope (and a few months before the ones I just mentioned of HR8799). At the time, the planet was not confirmed. New observations indicate it is, in fact, a planet.

So to be completely accurate: the image from 2008 of a now-confirmed planet was the first direct image of a planet orbiting a sun-like star taken using a ground-based telescope. This is still very cool, but has been reported inaccurately (the space.com headline, for example, is wrong or at best incomplete).

Also, going back to the submitted text here to slashdot, planets have been found by three methods: the gravitation tug-of-war Doppler method, the transit method, and by gravitational lensing. I'll leave it up to you to look all that up; I'm exhausted. :)

Re:This submission is inaccurate

[The Bad Astronomer]

Oh-- I submitted my own writeup as a followup. Hopefully it will be added to this to make it more accurate.

Someone clever please answer this

[Anonymous Coward]

I've been wondering for twenty years at least: how big a telescope do we need to build, in space, or on the dark side of the moon, or even on earth, to see cities on an earthlike planet somewhere out there?

I've long wondered this too. When you think about it the whole universe is actually right here, right now passing through you and you coud 'see' it with a big enough eye.

So someone, please share the relevant equations and give a suitable example or two or point to a page that deals with this.

Have they plotted the orbit?

[Locke2005]

Since this is an extremely young star system, is it possible that this planet is on an extremely eccentric orbit, and over the next few years will move much closer to it's star?

Relativity to the Rescue

[Roger W Moore]

even if we all live 1000 years, getting to that planet will be incredibly long and boring.

Not necessarily if you are the one doing the travelling. In that case the trip can be arbitrarily short.

Two words on aged explorers

[Anonymous Coward]

Phssthpok Pak

So, stay with slowships and invent Tree of Life virus!

I took my own picture, here it is.

[Anonymous Coward]

Here's a pic of the planet.

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