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Hubble Snaps Photo of Extrasolar Planet

Posted by CmdrTaco on Tue Jan 11, 2005 09:01 AM
from the do-you-see-what-i-see dept.
Space Science
iamlucky13 writes "Space.com has reported that a Hubble Space Telescope photo supports with a very high degree of confidence that a picture taken by the European Space Observatory does indeed show an extrasolar planet. As many readers know, planets outside our solar system are typically found by watching for wobbles in a star's orbit or for dimming caused by the planet crossing in front of its star. The ESO and Hubble images would represent the 1st and 2nd times that planets outside our solar system have been directly detected. The planet is about 5 times as massive as Jupiter and orbits a brown dwarf a little farther out than Pluto orbits our own sun."
+ -
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[+] Transit Method Reveals Many Extrasolar Planets 174 comments
eldavojohn writes "You might recall not too long ago the first photo of an extra solar planet or, more recently, the mapping & speculation on these planets that lie outside our own solar system. Long since those first few spotted in the 90s, we're now starting to find them in droves due to the popularity of a method that relies on the planet passing directly between the viewer on earth and the star that it orbits. Be sure to check out Space.com's list of the most interesting extra-solar planets. Will we ever find Earth 2.0 candidates?"
[+] Exoplanet Found In Old Hubble Image 54 comments
Kristina at Science News writes "A new way to process images reveals an extrasolar planet that had been hiding in an 11-year-old Hubble picture. After ground-based telescopes found three planets orbiting the young star HR 8799, a team took that information and reprocessed some 11-year-old Hubble Space Telescope images. Voila. There was one of the three planets, captured by Hubble but not visible until new knowledge could see the picture in a fresh light. The technique could reveal hidden treasures in many archived telescope images." For reference, the first exoplanet to be (knowingly) directly imaged was 2M1207_b in late 2004.
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  • Minor correction (Score:5, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 11 2005, @09:05AM (#11320068)
    The ESO is the European Southern Observatory, not Space Observatory.

  • Sounds like (Score:4, Insightful)

    by JJ (29711) on Tuesday January 11 2005, @09:05AM (#11320071) Homepage Journal
    . . . not so much like Vulcan as a failed binary star system.

    Still if we can get pictures of something five times bigger than Jupiter at this distance . . .
    • Still if we can get pictures of something five times bigger than Jupiter at this distance . . .

      Imagine a upgraded Hubble or Hubble II.... the implications of photographing and analysing planets and their atmospheres (by measuring the light sprectrum or even photographing it) could be enormous. Imagine one snapping a Earth type.

      Though it'd give fire to the people opposing interstellar travel ('why go there and waste a lot of money when we can photograph it safely from here?'). At least we'd be able to

      • Re:Sounds like (Score:5, Insightful)

        by RazzleFrog (537054) <mike.thinckaloud@com> on Tuesday January 11 2005, @09:15AM (#11320150)
        Are there really that many people who oppose interstellar travel? Wouldn't we have to prove it is feasible first before people really started worrying about the cost? We haven't even figured out how to get to Mars and back in a reasonable fashion yet.

          • Re:Sounds like (Score:5, Insightful)

            by AviLazar (741826) on Tuesday January 11 2005, @09:27AM (#11320252) Journal
            If they can gaurantee me an atmosphere to breathe - as the saying goes "Beam me up Scotty" - I wanna go. It would be an adventure of a lifetime. Yea I would spend years in space - but the end result might just be worth it (especially if they create a big enough space ship that contains the population of a small town). Ok this sounds geeky and far fetched - but why not? The only thing stopping us is greed and fear.
            • Reminds me of a short story I read years ago...
              Colonists gave up everything they own for a chance to colonize a new planet, but they get to be first.

              Only thing is, right after they leave Earth, FTL travel is invented. So by the time they get there, planet is already fully colonized and they end up getting a raw deal.
            • Interstellar travel suffers from its own version of Moore's Law. The first ships will be damn slow, but they will increase in speed fairly steadily as we become more comfortable with the technology. The problem is, the new ships will blow past the old ships en route, and the first ones to leave will be the last ones to arrive. An interstellar travel time of ~100 years would be making pretty good time for an early mission to somewhere in the local neighbourhood. If you could get a five-fold speed increas
              • So what do we do? Stop the effort to travel? Travel shorter distances (lets colonize the moon). Pick up the ships along the way? "Hey on your way to planet XYZ would you stop by and pick up space shuttle 1 - they've been on the road for 20 years you know. Oh and I hear one of the passangers, Avi, likes La Columbe Coffee and is going crazy because he is forced to drink harbucks" Put the ship and tow and continue onward with Half-Life 15: Counter Strike - Beyond the Source

              • In other words, by the time the first explorers (that's you) arrive, there will already be 150 Starbucks franchises on the planet, the planet will be launching its own missions to further stars, and you will be turned back at the spaceport for not having the right Visas in your passport.

                So, what you do before setting out in your first generation colony ship is to form an organization back an Earth whose mission it is to manage a trust/foundation and apply newer technology as it becomes available to supp

          • There's a much greater risk for a lot more people if we continue developing new ways to kill as many of us as possible, than if we decide to go to the stars. But that's just me.

      • Re:Sounds like (Score:4, Interesting)

        by stupidfoo (836212) <strictfoo-ignorant@nOSpaM.yahoo.com> on Tuesday January 11 2005, @09:25AM (#11320236) Homepage
        Imagine a upgraded Hubble or Hubble II....

        Forgot what series it was (I think it was some six part BBC series) but the idea is to have a satellite array out in space, similar to how they have ground based arrays. They would be aligned via laser. They made it sound like this was something that was going to be done sometime around 2015, or so.

        The implications were that they would then be able to see earth sized planets directly, and possibly even be able to analyze the atmosphere of the planet.

  • grainy! (Score:3, Funny)

    by dioscaido (541037) on Tuesday January 11 2005, @09:07AM (#11320077)
    how many megapixels does the hubble have?

  • Its always such a disapointment (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Timesprout (579035) on Tuesday January 11 2005, @09:11AM (#11320107)
    when you see these photos. I know its a tremendous achievement but when you see a whole planet and it still looks like a little pixelated blob then its hard to match the achievement to what you are actually viewing.
    • As far as stars go, only Betelgeuse [nasa.gov] is large enough and close enough to get (slightly) more than a pixelated pinpoint. And stars tend to be bigger than planets.
    • Actually for me it's the opposite. I know that there was a time, during my own lifetime (and I'm just 27) when astronomers couldn't detect exoplanets by any means, even indirect means. And now finally... we get a tiny glimpse of an exoplanet for the first time. For me it's amazing to think that we finally have that technology to actually see something so tiny that is so far away. I think that it's the fact that it's just a few pixels that makes it the more fantastic, that is, it's on the edge of our technol
      • MTV generation indeed. A generation I'm part of and disgusted by, in large part.

        Part of the problem, of course, is that NASA takes 80 billion photos of large, interstellar objects like massive galaxies, none of which actually show the large object as it actually appears (or, in most cases, DOESN'T appear). Then, they combine all their infrared and this radiation that radiation images into one big, purty, inaccurate public "photo" that makes everyone go "ooooh ahhhh" when, in fact, the object actually looks nothing like the photo the press was given.

        Then, when people see the real pictures they go "what the hell is this pixelated blob? If this planet is so big and so close [relative to the aforementioned large object] why can't I see little green men waving to me on it?"

  • Probability (Score:4, Interesting)

    by asliarun (636603) on Tuesday January 11 2005, @09:11AM (#11320109)
    From the article:-
    "University of Arizona astronomer Glenn Schneider, who led the new study, said he's 99.1 percent sure the object is in orbit around the brown dwarf."

    How does one calculate the probability of accuracy and arrive at an exact figure like 99.1%? I mean, isn't this self-contradictory, or am i missing something?

    • Re:Probability (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Kjella (173770) on Tuesday January 11 2005, @09:24AM (#11320223) Homepage
      I presume they took their data, and from that created a probability cone of where it was going, not unlike the recent comet thing. And of that probability cone, 99,1% would lead to an orbit around the brown dwarf.

      If I have a random number between 0 and 100 (probability cone), I can be 99,1% sure it'll be within 0 and 99,1 (in orbit). I assume they can pretty exactly determine the "band" in which objects would stay in orbit.

    • Re:Probability (Score:4, Insightful)

      by arodland (127775) on Tuesday January 11 2005, @09:25AM (#11320239)
      The science of statistics is basically all about saying how sure you are about things. For example, "given this set of data from the sample group, there's a 95% chance that the mean number of slashdotters per household worldwide lies between 0.15 and 0.23," or "Given these sets of measured position and velocity vectors, and their uncertainties, there is an 0.23% chance that object X's path will intersect with the earth's in the year 2038."

      So perhaps they've taken a number of (extremely lo-res, I'm sure) measurements of the path of body X around star Y, and found that given the degree of certainty of their measurements, then there's a 99.1% chance that body X's velocity is consistent with orbit, but an 0.9% chance that all the errors stacked up the wrong way and it's really just speeding by in a hyperbolic orbit or something like that.

    • Re:Probability (Score:5, Informative)

      by LMCBoy (185365) * on Tuesday January 11 2005, @10:01AM (#11320626) Homepage Journal
      This is the kind of silliness that results when astronomers talk to the press.

      Among ourselves, astronomers will talk about how many "sigma" a detection is, referring to how far above the Gaussian noise [wikipedia.org] the signal is. A 1-sigma detection is real 68% of the time. 2-sigma detections are real 95% of the time, 3-sigma data are 99.7% sure, etc. So, Glenn is just saying that the hypothesis that the brown dwarf and its candidate companion are actually moving together in space is supported by the data above the errors by about 2.5 sigma or so. With further observations, the errors will shrink, and it will then be above three sigma (assuming the hypothesis is correct).

      But, Glenn can't talk about "sigmas" to the press, because, sadly, not everyone knows the wonders of the Gaussian normal distribution. So he does a quick conversion to probabilities for the press release. BTW, it is indeed possible to characterize errors to the tenth of a percent, especially when you are close to 100% confidence.

      Get ready for more astronomy-related news this week; our annual society meeting (AAS) is taking place in San Diego.

  • Headline (Score:5, Funny)

    by truthsearch (249536) on Tuesday January 11 2005, @09:11AM (#11320112) Homepage Journal
    You gotta love the Register's headline for this story: "Extra-solar planet snapped by galactic paparazzi [theregister.com]". I supposed they are looking at a big star, but... Anyway, gave me a chuckle.
    • One has to appreciate the irony of the Register, barely a tabloid rag at best, refering to anyone as "paparazzi".

      • Naa, the blur is there to make the planet look artificially younger... you know, iron out all those wrinkles and signs of its real age. ;-)

  • Planet Finder (Score:5, Informative)

    by KavanaghNY (246972) on Tuesday January 11 2005, @09:15AM (#11320155) Homepage
    NASA is developing the Terrestrial Planet Finder [nasa.gov] which should discover and image even smaller extrasolar planets when it is launched in a few years. Sooner than that, the Kepler Mission [nasa.gov] "will survey the extended solar neighborhood to detect and characterize hundreds of terrestrial and larger planets in or near the "habitable zone," defined by scientists as the distance from a star where liquid water can exist on a planet's surface."
    • in or near the "habitable zone," defined by scientists as the distance from a star where liquid water can exist on a planet's surface."

      The habitable zone is a rather out-of-date idea. Just look at our solar system: There is probably more liquid water all over the place - possibly in Jupiter's atmosphere as a result of internal heat, almost certainly under an ice layer on Europa and perhaps in a similar state on Callisto. Mercury has such a range of temperatures that liquid water is at least possible (a
  • Sure it's interesting, but useless. I'd rather hear about a planet that is actually able to support human-type life or even humnas. Not a gigantic ball of gas orbiting a compressed sun that would suck your fillings out of your head from 10 light years away.
    • The planet candidate is about 1.5 times the diameter of Jupiter and about five times as massive.

      Who said it was a ball of gas? The earth is four times denser than Jupiter, so this planet would be similar to the earth in density.

      Dan East
      • Here are some calculations.

        The planet candidate has 1.5 times the diameter of Jupiter, which means its volume is 2.25 greater. However it is 5 times as massive as Jupiter, so its density would have to be 2.222 times greater.

        Earth is 4.16 times denser than Jupiter, so Earth is only 1.873 times denser than this new planet.

        I think that's right. :)

        Dan East
        • Okay, that's wrong.

          The planet candidate has 3.375 times the volume of Jupiter (calculated the volume wrong). It is 5 times as massive, so its density is 1.48 times greater. Thus Earth is 2.8 times denser than this planet.

          Dan East

      • The planet candidate is about 1.5 times the diameter of Jupiter and about five times as massive. Who said it was a ball of gas? The earth is four times denser than Jupiter, so this planet would be similar to the earth in density.

        Not quite.

        Mass is proportional to volume, and this planet would have 3.4 times the volume of Jupiter. So its density would only be 1.5 times that of Jupiter. That higher density could easily be explained by having the same composition as Jupiter, just more tightly packed d

    • Well we can't do all the cool things we want to do right away. We have to take it in steps. One day we will be able to produce rough maps of Earth sized exoplanets - but not today. What the article describes is one step closer to that goal.
  • It looks like the picture of the planet has been replaced by a screen shot of the classic Wizard of Wor arcade game radar screen.

  • Looks like a duck... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by slapout (93640) on Tuesday January 11 2005, @09:18AM (#11320178)
    It does not orbit a normal star, and it is much more massive than the largest planets in our solar system.

    So, we've found an object in space that's unlike any other planet we've seen, so we assume it's a planet?

  • In this [space.com] image it looks like the planet has a bump on the lower left side. Could this be a mega-Olympus Mons (on a gas giant, hmm)? Yeah, yeah, I'm sure it's just noise, but it's fun to over-analyze images.
  • Hmmm... Must be Planet X. I wonder if Lord British is hanging out there? Then there was Saturn. I think thats where all the Jester's were. Anyone have any Trilithium, a Skull Key and the coordinates for Planet X? :)
  • This new planet is 1.5x the size of Jupiter and 5x Jupiter's mass. Its orbit is 30% farther out from its star than Pluto is from our sun. To put things in perspective, Jupiter has been described as a brown dwarf star, since it is mostly gaseous and gives off more radiation than can be accounted for by solar reflection. This new planet-star relationship is closer to a binary star system than to our 365 day whirl around the block at a balmy 65 degrees F. (I make a point about the design and structure of t
  • maybe someone decided to build dyson sphere [wikipedia.org] instead
  • If we can a plant 225 light years away, does that mean we have definitively ruled out the existence of planets in the solar systems close to us? If so, are planets rare? /me notes to look this stuff up later this evening.

    • does that mean we have definitively ruled out the existence of planets in the solar systems close to us?

      Hell, we haven't even ruled out the existence of more planets in OUR solar system [bbc.co.uk]. Give it some time.
    • It was easier to see BECAUSE it goes around a brown dwarf. A brown dwarf has the mass to be a sun but not enough "feul" to create the fission reaction to light up. So essentially it is easier to see because there is not as much light around it. That and the fact that it is such a large planet. While 5 time Jupiter's size seems large, there are suns that are as big as the entire ORBIT of Jupiter in diameter. So as planets go, yes its big, but not sun-like in size.

  • Wait until April to get excited... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by dtolman (688781) <dtolman@yahoo.com> on Tuesday January 11 2005, @09:58AM (#11320594) Homepage
    ...when they can confirm closer to 100%. This isn't the first time they've seen a dim point of light next to a star and hoped its a planet. Last time they waited a few months, they found out that the "planet" stayed put while the star moved on its merry way.

    If the "planet" is still moving in concert with the star in a few months, then I'll believe it.

    • I think it's sort of like how you can see a stoplight from a mile away but you can't see a bacterium on your fingernail -- the moon vehicles are really really small for astronomical objects. Also, I should point out that they found this by observing a wobble in a star. Stars are glowing, whereas the lunar vehicles are not -- they reflect about the same amount of sunlight as regular moon rocks do.

      It seems like I read somewhere that the next generation of telescopes may have enough resolution to see the lu
    • I imagine that none of our sufficiently large telescopes are built to be able to focus on something as close as the moon telescopes typically can focus properly on a range that is determined by components of the optical system, my guess is that if hubble took a look at the moon we would get a horrible grainy image, no clarity whatsoever.

      For example, take a normal commercial telescope and put an object 1 inch from the lens and see if you can get it to focus properly.

      Furthermore, why waste the effort doing so

    • they are able to find a _planet_ that is away more than 225 light years but they aren't able to point their telescopes toward the moon to find out if the vehicles from the moon landing are really there...

      Attention all Tin Foil Hat wearers! Much to the dismay of management we've now accepted that no proof given to you short of personal experience will be considered as acceptable by you. If big brother controls the best equipment on and off the Earth wouldn't it be more likely that they could just fake a ph
    • they are able to find a _planet_ that is away more than 225 light years but they aren't able to point their telescopes toward the moon to find out if the vehicles from the moon landing are really there...

      They can find the planet because its a big ball of matter glowing in the ir/light/uv spectrum against a backdrop of cold dark space.

      The lander is a tiny piece of cold painted metal against a backdrop of lunar rock. That makes it a bit harder to see... next time we need to paint those suckers with radioa

      • I don't think it has anything to do with focus. Even with a huge telescope, anything more than a thousand miles away should be well within infinite focus, since it's an asymptotic sort of thing. Someone should correct me if I'm wrong though.

        A sibling post has a good link which explains that Hubble simply doesn't have the resolution, and it's also inconvenient that the moon moves so quickly.

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