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First Exoplanet To Be Seen In Color Is Blue
ananyo writes "A navy-blue world orbiting a faraway star is the first exoplanet to have its colour measured. Discovered in 2005, HD 189733 b is one of the best-studied planets outside the Solar System, orbiting a star about 19 parsecs away in the Vulpecula, or Fox, constellation. Previous efforts to observe the planet focused on the infrared light it emits — invisible to the human eye. Astronomers have now used the Hubble Space Telescope to observe the planet and its host star. Hubble's optical resolution is not high enough to actually 'see' the planet as a dot of light separate from its star, so instead, the telescope receives light from both objects that mix into a single point source. To isolate the light contribution of the planet, the researchers waited for the planet to move behind the star during its orbit, so that its light would be blocked, and looked for changes in light colour. During the eclipse, the amount of observed blue light decreased, whereas other colours remained unaffected. This indicated that the light reflected by the planet's atmosphere, blocked by the star in the eclipse, is blue."
Let's call this place "Eiffel 65".
I am officially gone from
I'm curious: what are the likely elements and molecules that would cause the blue reflection?
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Neptune is blue too....
Probably explains something about Vulpix.
Did they find the Androsynth living there?
or it indicates the planet is hurtling toward us and will strike the earth in less than 40 years.
We need to start building arks NOW.
We need to start building arks regardless.
So this planet might have a breathable atmosphere. But odds are it's more methane-based.
Still, pretty nice we can observe a planet's color.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
What? No one ever said this planet might host life. According to TFA it's a gas giant.. And last I heard gas giants don't host life.
I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer.
So, they are observing the change in light when the planet moves farther away (behind its star) and seeing less blue, thereby conjecturing the planet is blue. But wouldn't the planet's light also redshift as it moves away and blueshift as it moves toward us? How much of the color change is accounted for by doppler?
At the least, I'm sure there's no life on Uranus.
Slow down, cowboy! It has been 4 hours since you last posted. You must wait another few hours.
you might have read the article about this being a gas giant with 1,000+ degree C atmosphere, with sideways 7,000 KPM wind containing glass particles that make the blue color. but instead you had to reflexively yank your own leash and bark a bunch of nonsense. Maybe the reason governments haven't come out with information about extraterrestrials is that you imagine it from non-existent evidence?
I mean, look at all this time and effort we're wasting on "science" and "discovery."
We need to get back to 16th century thinking and government funded services so my taxes can go down another $10 a paycheck. I mean, those cigarettes and premium cable TV channels aren't going to pay for themselves!
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
The planet has a surface temperature of about 1000 degrees Celsius. It is scourged by 7000 km/h winds. Pieces of silica, or if you prefer: glass, are flying around at supersonic speeds. And yes, it is the silica and the glass that give the planet its blue color. We should not call it Eiffel65. We should call it Philip.
Religous speak to God. Insane are spoken to by God. When all shut up, one can finally hear Shostakovich in peace
I am not an astronomer; any chance that the coloration could be affected by something in between? For example these so called "wrinkles" that Voyager is experiencing as it exits the solar system? Just curious.
The last I had heard, we were nowhere near determining whether that was so. It seems improbable that a gas giant would, but until we actually have a reasonably decent sample size of gas giants under close observation, I'd say it's awfully premature to jump to conclusions.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Since parsec is an antiquated unit, this planet is about 62 light years away. (or, more usefully: 2.914 quadrillion furlongs)
Wow. I actually got to be pedantic about units and none of the units involved were metric!
19 Parsecs away, you say? Han could make it in less than 12.
In other words, it's about 1.6 Kessel Runs? But how fast is that?
John
Where are the pictures? (even if one pixel wide)
They can't see the planet, but they know when it's behind it's sun. It's 61 light years away. Umm, like is there water on the moon, or not?
TLDR: They found out that the planet is blue, by using MS paint colour picker on their instagram picture of the planet.
Several times in TFS, it says that the planet is "eclipsed" by the star. This, of course, is nonsense: the correct term is "occluded," and the event is called an occultation.
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The planet isn't blue. The blue light that got blocked out by the host star was actually the trillions of blue LEDs that the natives use to light their cities, just because they happen to really fancy blue.
It seems improbable that a gas giant would
Does it seem improbable to you? Life on Earth evolved in a fluid.
Even if genesis is not possible in a gas giant atmosphere, large planets tend to have lots of moons and, therefore, lots of opportunities for primitive life to emerge. Extremophiles from such a moon could survive a short trip through space to a gas giant's atmosphere. Some small fraction of those would thrive and evolve in the new environment.
I suspect gas giant atmospheres may actually be very fertile. Life is good at producing simple sphere shapes needed for buoyancy. There are probably gas giants with billions of tons of biomass drifting around.
Lurking at the bottom of the gravity well, getting old
I don't know. I've heard Uranus is crawling with worms.
Because that's how welcoming the atmosphere is.
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Vulpecula - Little Vixen, it differs slightly in connotation from the article's translation of Fox.
He effected a bored affect.
You are not a *happy camper*.
orbiting a star about 19 parsecs away
Where is the helpful posts converting this to a more useful measurement, like "libraries of congress" or "golf balls"?
Who would win this election: Andrew Weiner vs Andrew Weiner's weiner.
Fuck that shit! It's light years around here buddy!
Shoes for Industry. Shoes for the Dead.
> Life on Earth evolved in a fluid.
Actually, last I hear the going theory was that life probably evolved on submerged surfaces. Technically in a fluid, but able to borrow structure from the solid substrate, facilitating the development of more complex structures which eventually evolved self-stabilization and the ability to become free-floating. Seething chaos is great for simple chemistry, but nano-mechanical machines like early versions of RNA and enzymes likely benefited from a buffer.
The rest are good points though, and I'll add that we have only the vaguest idea as to what might be going on in the hearts of gas giants - could be the hot diamond beds of Jupiter's hydrogen seas are actually wonderfully nurturing environments for proto-life, not that I'd put money on it.
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
And last I heard gas giants don't host life.
Probably Dwellers and/or Affront, dumbass.
...planets were planets and there was no "exo" about it?