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What Does Sunset On an Alien World Look Like?

Posted by Soulskill on Monday January 9, 2012 @08:12AM from the forgot-my-camera dept.

The Bad Astronomer writes "Using real data from Hubble Space Telescope of a planet orbiting another star, exoplanetary scientist Frédéric Pont created a lovely image of what sunset would look like from HD209458b, nicknamed Osiris, a planet 150 light years away. The Hubble data gave information on the atmospheric absorption of this hot Jupiter planet, and, coupled with models of how the atmosphere was layered, Pont was able to create a realistic looking sunset on the planet. The big surprise: the star looks green as it sets! Sodium absorption sucks out the red colors and blue is scattered away, leaving just the green hues to get through. It's a lovely application of hard scientific knowledge."

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And conveniently enough by hedwards · 2012-01-09 08:13 · Score: 1, Insightful

it's located someplace that we're not going to be able to verify the results.
1. Re:And conveniently enough by Ardeaem · 2012-01-09 08:16 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  it's located someplace that we're not going to be able to verify the results.
  The laws of physics work the same way there that they do here...you don't actually have to go there to know how light will pass through the atmosphere...
2. Re:And conveniently enough by UnknownSoldier · 2012-01-09 08:44 · Score: 1, Insightful
  
  > The laws of physics work the same way there that they do here...
  And your proof is ... ?
Re:Only if... by Victor_0x53h · 2012-01-09 08:27 · Score: 4, Insightful

I see what you're going for there, but the image would be of "a sunset on an alien world", not "a sunset on an alien world as observed through the eyes of an alien". I know this is Slashdot and reading articles isn't kosher, but I thought it was ok to at least read the post's title.