Slashdot Mirror
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.
Damn, I love living in the future.
Living With a Nerd
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.
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!
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.
From TFA "first ever directly photographed by telescopes on Earth" Formalhaut_b was imaged from Hubble.
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.
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!
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!
I vote we use the cast of "Jersey Shore," and not give them spacesuits.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
> 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???
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!
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.
If the only way you can accept an assertion is by faith, then you are conceding that it can't be taken on its own merits
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. :)
*** Phil Plait, aka The Bad Astronomer http://www.badastronomy.com