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Hubble's Exoplanet Pics Outshined by Keck's
Posted by
timothy
on Thu Nov 13, 2008 03:33 PM
from the keckkeckkeck-is-the-new-bwahaha dept.
from the keckkeckkeck-is-the-new-bwahaha dept.
dtolman writes "Scientists at the Keck and Gemini telescopes stole the thunder of Hubble scientists announcing the first picture of an extrasolar world orbiting a star. Hubble scientists announced today that they were able to discover an extrasolar world for the first time by taking an actual image of the newly discovered exoplanet orbiting Fomalhaut — previous discoveries have always been made by detecting changes in the parent star's movement, or by watching the planet momentarily eclipse the star — not by detecting them in images. Hubble's time to shine was overshadowed though by the Keck and Gemini observatories announcing that they had taken pictures of not just one planet, but an entire alien solar system. The images show multiple planets orbiting the star HR 8799 — 3 have been imaged so far."
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Gene Wolfe fans rejoice (Score:4, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
I did'nt catch that reference while reading New Sun - good eye. I was thinking of mentioning Fomalhaut system's role in the Hyperion Cantos by Dan Simmons, even though it's just a minor setting IIRC. Then I was going to tell people to check out the series because it's a fine one, but since you've mentioned The Book Of The New Sun, I'm just going to shut up and hope that more folks put it at the top of their reading lists, and then insert it again halfway down to catch what they missed before.
Re:Gene Wolfe fans rejoice (Score:5, Informative)
It's unlikely there's any civilizations on ANY exoplanets we've discovered, since they're all gas giants. Civilizations like ours are only likely on small, rocky, warm planets, which are currently undetectable to us as they're too small, and too close to their stars.
Of course, Fomalhault "b" is only a temporary designation; if smaller planets are detected closer to the star, then one of those would become "b" I imagine. But even so, it still isn't likely there'd be a civilization on one of those, since this star is so young, and so would any planets orbiting it. If the age of this star is correct, it didn't even exist when our world had dinosaurs on it, which wasn't really that long ago considering the age of our planet.
As for moons, however, I wouldn't be surprised to find that Fomalhault's gas giant planets had some moons. Our own gas giants have tons of moons, many of them just tiny asteroids really. Surely at least a few stray asteroids have been captured by these gas giants over the past 60 million years.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Maybe not. It might be easier to name them in the order of discovery. If nothing else, that eliminates any possible confusion down the road.
The Author (Score:5, Informative)
I think the discovery was made by the team led by Paul Kalas:
http://astro.berkeley.edu/~kalas/index.html [berkeley.edu]
Re: (Score:2)
obligatory... (Score:4, Funny)
Re:obligatory... (Score:5, Funny)
It would be "That's no planet..."
I wish I could mod myself (-1: Pedantic)
Parent
Re:obligatory... (Score:5, Funny)
That's no mod choice!
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
On the contrary, if it's in Kecks [odps.org], it might be Uranus.
Are we sure it's a planet? (Score:2)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cthugha [wikipedia.org]
Direct link to Hubble Press Release and pix (Score:5, Informative)
Colonization (Score:5, Funny)
I wanna live on the left dot.
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Colonization (Score:5, Funny)
If you can get there, it's yours.
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
If you can get there, it's yours.
Sweet. I'm going to paint it pink and stock it with hippies.
Sorry (Score:5, Funny)
As deed holder via the International Star Registry, that includes a deed on any planets in orbit, I forbid it. Why, there might even be rich deposits of diamelles and/or Ginsu steak knives on that planet. I'm not giving it up without a fight.
Parent
Re:Sorry (Score:5, Funny)
As deed holder via the International Star Registry, that includes a deed on any planets in orbit, I forbid it. Why, there might even be rich deposits of diamelles and/or Ginsu steak knives on that planet. I'm not giving it up without a fight.
If it's interstellar war you want, sir, it's interstellar war you shall have! Have at you!
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
Alien vs Predator (Score:3)
Alien vs Predator made even more sense than the comparison in the headline...
more like (Score:2)
Speck and Gemini telescopes stole the thunder of Hubble scientists announcing the first picture of an extrasolar world orbiting a star.
Seriously though, it is a shame that this will not get wider news coverage. Slashdot has had some interesting articles in the past few days, first the 11,000 temple and now this. This is slashdot after all, let us not dwell on the cosmic or profound. Queue the speck puns in 3... 2... 1...
The similarities are stunning! (Score:5, Funny)
In the hubble picture (Score:5, Informative)
In the hubble picture, does anyone else see the shadow of the Enterprise?
Re: (Score:2)
Zoom In (Score:2)
"Computer, Zoom in"
Great explanation from Gemini directors (Score:3, Interesting)
Finally! (Score:2)
I was an astrophysics major in college for about 2 years but gave up on it because it seemed so speculative. To infer the existence of a planet around a star from the 'wobble' we see in the position or spectrum of the star may be sound science but it hardly grabs the imagination.
THIS, on the other hand is truly awesome. Seeing is believing I guess. Unless some kid is dicking around with Photoshop -- or more likely GIMP.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Funny thing is, it grabs *my* imagination! To see something, we have been doing this since eyes evolved on animals. But to perform careful calculations and realize that the results imply the existence of a planet, well, that's what I call awesome.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
overshadowed? (Score:5, Insightful)
On the contrary, the two works are complimentary, and it is thus no coincidence that they have been released at the same time. Hubble shows an old cold planet on the edge of a solar system, while Keck shows some very young hot infra-red emitting planets close to their star. The two discoveries help elucidate the workings of other solar systems - and each is just as valuable as the other.
Re: (Score:2)
Re:overshadowed? (Score:5, Informative)
Of course, this hasn't stopped both groups trying to spin up their results in a perfectly understandable fashion. The downside is that many online press stories are showing very signs of confusion as to what's what, not at all helped by the blizzard of parallel press releases from various institutions on the HR8799 3-planet system result.
Indeed, the Gemini Observatory release shows images taken with their telescope showing just two of the planets, presumably because they don't want to cede any ground to the Keck, their rivals on Mauna Kea, where the third planet was found. Again, potentially very confusing indeed to the public.
As for the complementary aspect of the two discoveries, that's mostly the case and both discoveries are very important. But it's not true to say that one's (Fomalhaut) an old planet seen in reflected visible light while the others (HR8799) are young and shining in their own heat: both stars are roughly equally young and the Fomalhaut planet seems also to be shining in some mix of its own heat even in the visible (it's at 400K, possibly), plus perhaps some additional reflected light from a dusty disk around the planet (as opposed to the obvious disk around the star itself).
Also, I wouldn't say the HR8799 planets are close to their star: nothing like. They're out at the equivalent of Neptune's orbit and beyond, even though the Fomalhaut planet's a bit further out still.
Hope this helps allay your (understandable) scepticism.
Parent
Papers available at ... (Score:3, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Take a deep breath. The discovery of exoplanets isn't news. Even taking pictures of them isn't news.
It's news that we're finding them on stars kinda like our own, but these aren't earth-style planets.
So, it's pretty interesting, but you can push "pause" on the CD player with "Also Sprach Zarathustra" queued up.
Re:Amazing (Score:5, Insightful)
Taking pictures of them *is* news. In fact, that's the point of these releases. These are the first direct images ever released. Before this, all evidence was indirect (oscillating plots of star brightness as the planet periodically eclipsed the host star, for instance).
Parent
Re:Amazing (Score:4, Interesting)
These are the first direct images ever released. Before this, all evidence was indirect (oscillating plots of star brightness as the planet periodically eclipsed the host star, for instance).
Well, except for HD 189733b [wikipedia.org], 2M1207 b [wikipedia.org] and GQ Lup b [space.com].
Parent
Re:Amazing (Score:5, Informative)
HD189733b: not directly imaged, but has had a temperature map of it reconstructed from very careful analysis of the change in the light from the parent star as the planet transits in front of and behind it.
2M1207b: this orbits a brown dwarf, not a star.
GQ Lup b: not a planet by any reasonable stretch of the scientific imagination, unless you happen to have been a co-author of the original paper. Believe me: this one is dead, Jim, and was known by most of us to be so on arrival.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
planets != habitable != life != intelligent life
Hell there is no reason to assume that intelligence is even the natural outcome of evolution, it didn't work during the era of the dinosaurs. When you take into account so many unknown factors, the existence of planets that we already knew would exist hardly makes it likely that we are not alone in the AU (we are ofcourse not alone in the universe, but what does it matter if we can never make contact with them). How many species are there in the AU well Drake
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Intelligence isn't a binary, yes-or-no trait. Dinosaurs were intelligent, just like lizards and birds and cats. They weren't very intelligent compared to us, but compared to an amoeba they certainly were. While you're sitting there thinking that you're so intelligent, there's probably some super-advanced alien race observing us, the way we observe mice or ants, and laughing at us for thinking we're intelligent.
Because of our limited technology for detecting exoplanets, the only ones discovered so far are
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Why on earth (or whatever planet you live on) would this be good for creationists? It's good science, and indicates significant progress in astronomy. Of course, they don't count any data as against them but I can't imagine how that would help them.
Re:Amazing (Score:4, Funny)
Parent
Re:Planets look like... (Score:5, Informative)
Parent
Re:Planets look like... (Score:5, Insightful)
If the "noise" obeys Kepler's laws, it's probably an image of something real.
Parent
Yes they do. (Score:5, Interesting)
So planets look a lot like noise. They really aren't all that much different than the expected noise levels on the images. Especially on the first one from Fomalhaut.
From far enough away, yes. Yes they do. For example, here's Earth from just outside the solar system, and the basis for Sagan's Pale Blue Dot.
http://veimages.gsfc.nasa.gov/601/PIA00452.tif [nasa.gov] (TIFF image)
That light blue pixel on the right is us. All of us. Taken from 6.4 billion kilometers away.
Deadpixel, indeed.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Mote in God's Eye (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re:Wish I could discovery something (Score:5, Funny)
To "Discovery" something is easy: you just make a documentary about it that's too dumbed-down for people who like documentaries but still too boring for those who don't, and add lots of unnecessary and repetitive CG animation.
Parent
Atmosphere is in the spectrum (Score:5, Insightful)
What they have right now can give a pretty accurate idea of the atmosphere on that planet. Pass the light from that dot through a diffraction grating and the spectrum will tell you which gases are present in what proportion in the atmosphere, and what is their temperature.
Parent
You're missing the science case. (Score:3, Insightful)