Astronomers Develop Method For Detecting Faint Exoplanets

SGDK664 writes "The University of Arizona's astronomers have developed a way to see faint planets previously hidden by the overwhelming light output of the star they orbit (abstract). At the core of the system is a small piece of glass with a highly complex pattern inscribed into its surface. Called an Apodizing Phase Plate, or APP, the device blocks out the starlight in a very defined way, allowing planets to show up in the image whose signals were previously drowned out by the star's glare. The breakthrough, which may allow observers to even block out starlight completely with further refinements, was made possible through highly complex mathematical modeling. If you're trying to find something that is thousands or a million times fainter than the star, dealing with the halo is a big challenge."

let's build more aircraft carriers, instead

[gaspar ilom]

If this technology were combined with a space-based infrared-interferometer [wikipedia.org], we could be detecting the chemical signatures of life around hundreds of nearby star systems -- and resolving continents on many more planets -- possibly, before extraterrestrial microbial life is definitively proven to exist in our own solar system.

• an interferometer can destructively cancel light from the central star, allowing planets to be more clearly resolved
• the difference in brightness between the central star, and objects orbiting it, is less in the infrared spectrum