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First Direct Photo of Exoplanet Confirmed

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the say-cheese-guys dept.

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.

4 of 189 comments (clear)

  1. As Wil Wheaton often says by Pojut · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Damn, I love living in the future.

    --
    Living With a Nerd
  2. Photo dates from 2008 by mbone · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

    1. Re:Photo dates from 2008 by Rogerborg · · Score: 3, Insightful

      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).

      --
      If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
  3. Adaptic optics FTW by OneAhead · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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!