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First Evidence of Extrasolar Planets Discovered In 1917
KentuckyFC writes: Earth's closest white dwarf is called van Maanen 2 and sits 14 light-years from here. It was discovered by the Dutch astronomer Adriaan van Maanen in 1917, but it was initially hard to classify. That's because its spectra contains lots of heavy elements alongside hydrogen and helium, the usual components of a white dwarf photosphere. In recent years, astronomers have discovered many white dwarfs with similar spectra and shown that the heavy elements come from asteroids raining down onto the surface of the stars. It turns out that all these white dwarfs are orbited by a large planet and an asteroid belt. As the planet orbits, it perturbs the rocky belt, causing asteroids to collide and spiral in toward their parent star. This process is so common that astronomers now use the heavy element spectra as a marker for the presence of extrasolar planets. A re-analysis of van Maanen's work shows that, in hindsight, he was the first to discover the tell-tale signature of extrasolar planets almost a century ago.
As always, we were there first. We Europeans are truly the Master Race.
That's rather indirect evidence. The title is a bit misleading if you ask me. It's an interesting fact, I agree, but the title needs work.
Table-ized A.I.
Telescopes were not as advanced almost 100 years ago!
Almost a century late to report the news.
So now the first discoverer is the one who sees it for the first time even if that person doesn't know what it was that he saw? Great! I might be the discoverer of a distant supernova if I'm the first human being whose eye is hit by a photon created during it's explosion!
Now to play the waiting game until someone discovers it. Oh, no, I mean until someone correctly identifies it as a supernova and someone else points out that I am the discoverer, because the photon hit me first.
For the record: I discovered the tanglon particle yesterday. It's a particle not on the matter / antimatter axis, but off by 90 degrees into something that cannot be named or described, by it's very nature.
"Earth's closest white dwarf is called van Maanen 2 and sits 14 light-years from here." Balderdash! Sirius B is a white dwarf that 7 years from here.
Did something happen to Sirius B recently?
The Hertzsprung–Russell diagram was proposed in 1910. It wasn't until the 1930's that it was understood how fusion was the energy producing mechanism for stars. Without understanding fusion and stellar evolution, there was no context in which to fit the observation of enhanced metallic elements in the star's spectrum.
So this only became evidence decades after the initial observation. It's interesting that the observation was made so early, but only retrospect makes it significant.
Why is Snark Required?
I took a picture of the night sky and just discovered everything that has not yet been discovered.
There will be a book signing on Friday.
.... by Maanen!
My pre-coffee reading is terrible.
I scanned this as:
First Evidence of extra solar panels Discovered In 1917