
Major Breakthrough: First Photos of Planets Around Other Stars - Anon84
http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/081113-hubble-exoplanet.html
======
alecco
Space.com doesn't give the photos and they don't even link to the original
paper. The article mostly speculates and link to themselves. Sorry, no up.

Wired did a much better article, and shorter, with less speculation:
[http://blog.wired.com/wiredscience/2008/11/first-direct-
im.h...](http://blog.wired.com/wiredscience/2008/11/first-direct-im.html)

Original paper: <http://tinyurl.com/6fdeu5> or
[http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/sci;1166585v1...](http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/sci;1166585v1?maxtoshow=&HITS=10&hits=10&RESULTFORMAT=&fulltext=bruce+macintosh&searchid=1&FIRSTINDEX=0&resourcetype=HWCIT)

~~~
13ren
They do, but it's hard to find:
[http://www.space.com/php/multimedia/imagedisplay/img_display...](http://www.space.com/php/multimedia/imagedisplay/img_display.php?pic=081113-hr8799-02.jpg&cap=The+three+exoplanets+%28red+dots+in+the+right+panel%29+are+shown+orbiting+HR+8799%2C+whose+residual+light+is+shown+as+the+multi-
colored+specks+in+the+center+of+the+right+panel.+An+infrared+image+of+one+of+the+planets%2C+which+lies+at+38+AU+from+the+star%2C+is+shown+in+the+right+panel.+%28note+that+the+right+hand+panel+is+a+blowup+of+the+region+marked+B+in+the+left+hand+panel.%29+Credit%3A+National+Research+Council+Canada)

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ionfish
I remarked earlier to my flatmate how much it said about our society that this
wasn't the top item on all the major news sites. At least it's the first thing
on Hacker News.

~~~
habs
Scientists and engineers have long been the engine of progression for
societies. I think it's a shame that people don't have more of an appreciation
at the technological and scientific wonders of the modern world. But like you
said "At least it's the first thing on Hacker News" :D

~~~
gaius
That's a relatively recent thing. Back in the day, engineers like Brunel were
rock stars.

~~~
jackchristopher
To my ears you're saying, "Nerds are high status; They're valued above CEOs
and politicians (or historical equivalents) for most of history."

I'm saying, "Suits are overvalued. And nerds are undervalued even by
themselves. That's always been true with periodic exceptions."

And I don't mean "suits" as a pejorative; I'm not using it in contempt. It's a
fact that people of that class wear them.

Actually, _I_ like wearing them.

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habs
"Scientific truth is too beautiful to be sacrificed for the sake of light
entertainment or money. Astrology is an aesthetic affront. It cheapens
astronomy, like using Beethoven for commercial jingles."

\- Richard Dawkins

~~~
habs
This article made me think of another quote my old physics teacher use to
quote -

"Nothing exists except atoms and empty space; everything else is opinion"

\- Democritus

~~~
kirubakaran
What about photons?

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13ren
pic:
[http://www.space.com/php/multimedia/imagedisplay/img_display...](http://www.space.com/php/multimedia/imagedisplay/img_display.php?pic=081113-hr8799-02.jpg&cap=The+three+exoplanets+%28red+dots+in+the+right+panel%29+are+shown+orbiting+HR+8799%2C+whose+residual+light+is+shown+as+the+multi-
colored+specks+in+the+center+of+the+right+panel.+An+infrared+image+of+one+of+the+planets%2C+which+lies+at+38+AU+from+the+star%2C+is+shown+in+the+right+panel.+%28note+that+the+right+hand+panel+is+a+blowup+of+the+region+marked+B+in+the+left+hand+panel.%29+Credit%3A+National+Research+Council+Canada)

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mynameishere
What kind of telescope would be necessary to actually view the details of a
distant planet? Also, this seems to be the uncolored version of the pic:

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:HR_8799_planetary_system_...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:HR_8799_planetary_system_photo.jpg)

~~~
hugh
_What kind of telescope would be necessary to actually view the details of a
distant planet?_

An incredibly large one. I don't have time to figure it out right now, but if
anyone feels motivated then what you need to be looking at is the diffraction
limit:

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diffraction_limit>

That's the fundamental limit on how small a feature you can pick up using a
telescope of a given size.

~~~
lutorm
Yeah, if you mean "detail on the planet" and not just resolve the planet from
its star, then it's completely infeasible. The current 30m-class telescopes
that are under development (ie www.tmt.org) in combination with high-contrast
adaptive optics will make it possible to see earth-size planets, if I'm not
mistaken, but not to resolve detail on their surface.

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13ren
If there was a habitable planet in that system with intelligent life, with the
same capabilities as us, they wouldn't be able to see _any_ of the planets in
our solar system.

~~~
breily
Why not? It seems like if we can see them they could see us - unless you just
mean our planets are smaller so they'd need a better telescope than we can
make?

~~~
gommm
Because we do not have any planets as huge as Formalhaut a, b and c in our
solar system...

~~~
13ren
Yes, and those planets are also hotter, therefore brighter and more visible.

The sky might be full of earth-like planets, and we wouldn't know (yet).

unless... detecting star-wobble is already sensitive enough to detect earth-
like mass and distance from sun?

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jmtame
Sorry kids, My Very Elegant Mother Just Served Us Nine Pickles is going to
become merely an introduction for the book you'll have to memorize after this
project is finished ;)

~~~
hugh
The planets are called a, b and c. I think we can remember that.

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jodrellblank
Did anyone ask the inhabitants whether they agree to have their information
stored in our computer systems under the terms of the Data Protection and
Privacy laws?

~~~
mechanical_fish
I'm no legal expert, but I'm guessing that the Universal Supreme Court will
affirm that a nation doesn't have legal jurisdiction outside of its light
cone.

~~~
Prrometheus
I thought we were in their light-cone, if we can see them.

~~~
mechanical_fish
We are in the light cone of the light that they emitted several hundred years
ago. The light that they are emitting "now" [1] is still a few hundred years
outside of our light cone, just as they still a hundred years or more away
from learning about our discovery of radio.

It's theoretically possible that they know about Earth's IP laws as of a few
hundred years ago. But in Dickens' day England couldn't manage to enforce
their IP laws _in the United States_ , let alone the rest of the Milky Way.

These days I'm sure that many lawyers wouldn't hesitate to sue Pluto for
misappropriating the name of a Disney character, but that news has yet to
reach many of our extrasolar neighbors.

[1] Keeping in mind that, in a discussion involving relativity, you have to be
very careful with the word "now".

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rgrieselhuber
Wouldn't it be interesting to have a Google Earth-like products of other
planets (due to spectacular advances in imaging, of course :-) ) long before
we ever have the means to travel there?

~~~
hhm
That already exists! There is a product by NASA that allows you to do that, I
don't remember the name (you can see the moon, mars, mercury, etc).

~~~
hhm
This one: <http://worldwind.arc.nasa.gov/>

Enjoy! It's really amazing

~~~
rgrieselhuber
Great - thanks!

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mellow
This is incredible. If astronomers analyse the spectra of the planets they can
now image and find oxygen, methane and CO2 in certain proportions, the only
conclusion will be life. Imagine if they find the spectral lines from
chemicals produced by an industrial, polluting society!

~~~
albertcardona
If current technology had enough resolution, scientists would have scanned the
planets already for oxygen, methane and water (which mixed together don't
quite exist unless there's a continuous force, like life, unbalancing the
physical reaction).

~~~
mellow
I realise they would have done this already if they could. I was thinking more
in the medium term - the next 3-5 years?

~~~
lutorm
Actually, they have. There are observations with the Spitzer space telescope
infrared spectrograph of planets occulting their star, where if I'm not
mistaken one could see something like methane absorption signatures of the
atmosphere of the planets. That's not very surprising, since these are
Jupiter-like planets and they have methane clouds in their atmosphere.

