Exoplanet Reports Exaggerated 55
The Bad Astronomer writes "The reports of the first direct picture of an exoplanet are misleading. The real news is that an image of a probable exoplanet taken in 2008 using a telescope in Hawaii have been confirmed — it's a planet. In fact, exoplanets have been directly imaged before; the first was in 2005. More images of other planets were released in 2008. To be specific: this new planet is the first to be directly imaged orbiting a sun-like star using observations made from the ground. That's actually still quite a technological achievement, but don't be misled by hyperbolic headlines."
Thanks Slashdot! (Score:4, Insightful)
(To be fair it's usually considered a sign of maturity to be able to admit that you made a mistake after the fact, but just i couldn't resist the dig. Guess i'm not mature enough.)
Re:What is this "exaggerated" bs? (Score:5, Insightful)
Wow, you didn't even read the summary above, did you? The summary pretty nicely explains what's been done and what's new here, even without reading the linked piece Phil wrote. It really doesn't take much effort in this case.
Also: insulting Phil Plait's ability to get to the real source and read it makes you look like a fool. Phil is a PhD'ed astronomer and one of the most active and followed astronomy popularizers in the field today. Telling him to go to S&T or Astronomy is insulting.
Re:What is this "exaggerated" bs? (Score:4, Insightful)
Please mod this down. I don't know what I was thinking.
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BMO