First Image Of Planet-Like Body Orbiting A Star 176
deglr6328 writes "The Gemini North Telescope has, for the first time, directly imaged a planet like body orbiting a star. The object is a brown dwarf, 55 to 78 times the mass of planet Jupiter and 14 AU distant from its parent star 15 Sge. It was imaged using adaptive optics(see also here) that correct for the blurring effect of the atmosphere using deformable mirrors. Cool!"
Hmmm.... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Ahhh so far away. (Score:1)
That Brown Dwarf is now getting our radio and TV broadcasts from early 1945.
Sit back and think for a second about what it is still to receive. Mmmm, I Love Lucy...
"Cool!" (Score:1)
Nice link to images, too (Score:4, Informative)
http://astra.hi.gemini.edu/gallery/science/
Re:Nice link to images, too (Score:1)
Planet-like bodies (Score:4, Funny)
I say we name it "Rosie" or "Oprah"....
Re:Planet-like bodies (Score:4, Funny)
They say... (Score:2, Funny)
Re:'corrected,' eh? (Score:3)
It is not quite that bad. This link here is really nice [llnl.gov]. I'm putting in a plug for my old alma-mater (go slugs.)
Yeah, the pictures are pretty (awesome, if real) but I'm going to wait for pictures from the Hubble (which had better be forthcoming!) before I'm totally persuaded.
That said - 58 light years? That's a long trip, but totally possible.
Saw this earlier today (Score:2, Interesting)
One wonders if the cosmic soup had simmered a little more or a little less if Jupiter wouldn't be a binary star. How would it affect sleep patterns? What the hell would our watches look like?
Re:Saw this earlier today (Score:4, Insightful)
Would we even be here?
Considering the climactic history of Earth, it's clear that even small perturbations in its orbit and small changes in the brightness of the Sun have large effects on the climate. In a binary star system, its not at all clear that any planetary climates would ever be steady enough to allow higher life forms to develop. Neither the orbit nor the energy received from the suns would likely be stable enough.
Re:Saw this earlier today (long ruminations) (Score:2, Interesting)
If Jupiter were more massive - simply igniting it without changing it's mass wouldn't cause it to exert more gravity - well, yeah, all bets are off, since that would imply very different things about the environment under which the entire solar system formed. Although, it just occured to me, Jupiter's core is still undergoing nuclear reactions (so is the earth's core) just not on a stellar scale. I don't see how we'd know if those reactions had been much faster/brighter three billion years ago. We'd have to guess from the amount of heavy hydrogen present in the Jovian atmosphere, and I don't think our measurements (radio spectroscopy? something about Jupiter's magnetic properties?)are precise enough to figure that out.
Re:Saw this earlier today (long ruminations) (Score:2, Informative)
Also, the nuclear reactions going on inside the Earth and Jupiter's cores are fission based (decay of unstable elements). This is completely different from what's happening in the Sun so comparing this to what was happening in the early stages of the solar system is pointless.
Re:Saw this earlier today (long ruminations) (Score:2, Interesting)
Well, that may or may not be true. The question is - can you get Jupiter's core under enough pressure to undergo fusion? The fact that it is undergoing fission now is relevant because fission of the sort occuring in Jove's core also requires considerable (although lesser) density/pressure. The heavy elements may also provide a source of high energy alpha particles to help fusion get started (like in a modern H bomb which uses fissioning technitium as a trigger.)
So, PV = nRT, right? Well, if Jupiter were hit by a uranus-sized object moving perpendicular to the orbital plane -
1) It would put off huge amounts of heat (q = delta T / S) which might increase the pressure in Jupiter's core enough to ignite it.
2) The actual impact would involve a lot of force, as well - the whole planet would deform like a ball bouncing off the wall of a squash court. This would constrict the volume available to the core (lowering V, raising P) as well as causing huge differentials in density (raising n locally) as the planet bounced back into shape.
I'm not sure if that would be enough to do it, but once Jupiter is "lit", the fusion processes in it's core WOULD put off enough heat to be self-sustaining.
Also, the nuclear reactions going on inside the Earth and Jupiter's cores are fission based (decay of unstable elements). This is completely different from what's happening in the Sun so comparing this to what was happening in the early stages of the solar system is pointless.
Actually, fusion is decay of unstable elements as well - heavy hydrogen nuclei are hit by other heavy hydrogen nuclei and "decay" into helium nuclei. The fission at earth and jupiter's cores is NOT spontaneous decay like you see in a sample of carbon 14 that is left to sit (at least not mostly). It's collision-mediated decay, a slow form of chain reaction like you see in a detonating U235 bomb. That is to say, like nuclear fusion, the fission that occurs in the earth's core is collision mediated.
Thank you for pointing that out though, since I agree that my previous post certainly didn't draw a distinction between the two.
blowing itself apart? (Score:1)
If Jupiter were to light in the way that you describe, isn't it quite possible that it wouldn't have enough mass (-> gravity) to hold itself together under the massive outward pressure of fusion in its core? Thus it could get lit for a relatively short period of time, but it could easily not last given its mass.
As an extreme example, our nuclear bombs work on the principle that you're describing to light jupiter, but they don't exactly last very long.
My very imprecise understanding of it (IANAA <- I Am Not An Astrophysicist) is that the reason that the sun doesn't blow apart is the extreme gravity holds it together. That's why in several billion years as the mass of the sun decreases through fusion (and subsequent radiation), it won't have the mass to keep itself so compact so it will get bigger from the outward pressure of the fusion in its core.
Then for really big stars, when they run out of fuel, that outward pressure dissapears rather suddenly and everything falls back in. This creates an incredible amount of pressure inside and 'lights' the star for one last time, fusing heavier elements to get the really big stuff (such as lead, uranium, etc.). Unfortunately, this doesn't last very long as the energy released is incredibly huge, and the outward pressure wins over the gravity in a rather dramatic fashion called a supernova.
Now, getting back to Jupiter, given that it's not massive enough to light itself through the pressure exerted by gravity, isn't it rather likely that if it were to get artificially 'lit', it wouldn't have enough mass to hold itself together and it would go boom, rather than burn?
Re:blowing itself apart? (Score:5, Informative)
The Law of Hydrostatic Equilibrium: Within every layer [of a star], the outward force of pressure equals the inward force of gravity.
Stars must have M 0.08 Msun to fuse hydrogen.
There exists a high-mass cutoff because very high mass stars cannot attain hydrostatic equilibrium. Very high mass stars produce enormous numbers of high-energy photons (L and T are both large). Photons exert pressure on gas (an effect called radiation pressure.) Ordinarily, the effects of radiation pressure are small, but for stars with M > 60 Msun, models indicate the radiation pressure is large enough to blow the star apart.
When a star exhausts the supply of H (hydrogen) in its core, it becomes a giant or supergiant, depending on its mass.
Once a star has used up all the H in its core, fusion of H into He (helium) stops. The core starts to contract just as it contracted as a protostar before H fusion began. As the core contracts, it releases energy. This energy heats up the layer immediately above the contracting He core. The layer immediately above the core becomes hot enough to initiate the fusion of hydrogen into helium.
The star now has three main layers:
(1) Helium core (inner layer): Releases energy as it shrinks in radius.
(2) Fusion shell: Releases energy as it fuses hydrogen into helium.
(3) Hydrogen envelope (outer layer): Absorbs energy, and swells greatly in size.
These swollen stars are now giants (if M 8 Msun).
Supergiants and giants with M > 0.4 Msun become hot enough to fuse He into C by the "triple alpha process", making primarily C (carbon), sometimes overshooting and making O (oxygen), and making Be (beryllium) as an intermediary product (and lots of gamma rays, too).
Once a giant or supergiant begins to fuse He in its core, it has four main layers.
Supergiants and giants with M > 3 Msun become hot enough to fuse C into heavier elements.
There is a limit to fusion: Iron (Fe).
The stages in the life of a 25 Msun star:
Hydrogen fusion lasts 7 million years
Helium fusion lasts 500,000 years
Carbon fusion lasts 600 years
Oxygen fusion lasts 6 months
Silicon fusion lasts 1 day
The star's core is now solid iron: end of the line as far as fusion is concerned.
Two choices:
(1) The star finds an alternative pressure source to maintain hydrostatic equilibrium which doesn't rely on the random thermal motions of atoms and ions; or
(2) The star collapses giving you:
a) black hole
or
b) nova/supernova
All clear now?
woof.
citations/references:8 starrfield.html
4 /n otes16.html
e r2 1.html
http://www.sciam.com/specialissues/0398cosmos/039
www-astronomy.mps.ohio-state.edu/~ryden/ast162_
cse.psc.sc.edu/hses/StarEvol/pages/reds.htm
blueox.uoregon.edu/~jimbrau/astr122/Notes/Chapt
www.imsa.edu/edu/astrophys/studentwork/inquiry/ (not as good)
Re:blowing itself apart? (Score:1)
But man, you NEED to get yourself a hobby....
I hope you don't talk in details like that to the chicks on a first date
BTW, French Fries RULE!!!
--------
Re:blowing itself apart? (Score:1)
Astrophysics is a great hobby. Trust me it even interests girls a heck of a lot more than say; Quake!
email address? (Score:1)
Re:blowing itself apart? (Score:1)
a) black hole
or
b) nova/supernova
Nice comment. You made little mistake thou. Blackhole and nova aren't exclusive.
-- Jari
Re:Saw this earlier today (long ruminations) (Score:1)
Sorry to say this, but the radioactive heat liberated within the Earth's core (and within Jupiters core) Is due to random decay of uranium and thorium. Fission does not occour there! The concentration of thorium and uranium within the core is far too low to allow fission to occour. Remember that the earth's core is 90%iron and 10%nickel. These metals are fairly good neutron absorbers, so in order for nuclear reactions other than alpha or beta decay to occour, you would need more than one percent uranium within the core.
Uranium and Thorium is not so abundant within the earths core, as it forms light silicates, and during the earths early life was concentrated in the crust of the earth in the process of differentiation of the earth as a whole.
Yours Yazeran
Plan: To go to Mars one day with a hammer.
Re:Saw this earlier today (long ruminations) (Score:2, Informative)
> in the center is massive enough so that the
> nuclei of hydrogen particles collapse into
> helium
The gravity of the sun isn't great enough to directly override the nuclear forces and cause fusion to occur. The weight of all the sun's material pressing inward because of that gravity, however, is great enough to cause fusion.
Wrong about stellar lifespans (Score:3, Informative)
No. It would outlive the Sun. The larger a star is the greater the internal pressure, and the faster it burns fuel.
Small stars are long lived, large stars burn out fast.
Re:Saw this earlier today (long ruminations) (Score:2)
Usually, dimmer stars burn much longer than brighter stars, so unless the planet-hit/lit-by-some-huge-asteroid is some strange exception, it should still burn today and should all in all burn much longer than the sun.
Re:Saw this earlier today (long ruminations) (Score:2)
More importantly: a bitch-slap from a passing asteroid will not "ignite" a big-ass ball of H & He. This is astrophysics, here; we're talking about 20000000000000000000000000000000kg of hydrogen, not Strike-Anywhere White-Tip kitchen matches!
Jupiter is about 1/80 the mass needed for ignition, which occurs due to heating from internal gravitational collapse.
woof.
"Ignite Jupiter", indeed! Then again, I once thought you might be able to "execute" a star simply by hitting it with a chunk of iron (see my other post on this thread.)
Re:Saw this earlier today (Score:1)
I guess we'll have to wait until 2010 [imdb.com] to find out! ;)
Fuzzy little 'planet' (Score:4, Funny)
Nick
Re:Fuzzy little 'planet' (Score:3, Funny)
Whats a Brown Dwarf... (Score:4, Interesting)
brown dwarfs. so.. at 78 times the size of jupiter how massive is massive? and how massive is it not massive compared to a star?
Re:Whats a Brown Dwarf... (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Whats a Brown Dwarf... (Score:1)
Other than the pretty photographs.
Re:Whats a Brown Dwarf... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Whats a Brown Dwarf... (Score:1)
You might want to append an "Out of our solar System" to that.
Re:Whats a Brown Dwarf... (Score:1)
Re:Whats a Brown Dwarf... (Score:1)
All the previously found planets were discovered by doppler shift of the parent star. Unless an object is rather massive (more than 1% of the mass of the star) you would not be able to detect it if it had an orbital radius similar to Jupiter. The task gets easier if the orbit is close to the star, as the pertubations in the stars light repeats at a shorter time interval.
Yours Yazeran
Plan: to go to Mars one day with a hammer.
Re:Whats a Brown Dwarf... (Score:3, Informative)
An object below this limit is substellar, and may be either a Brown Dwarf or a planet. The distinction between both is somewhat fuzzy, and certainly to some degree arbitrary. One could argue that Brown Dwarfs and planets differ by their mode of formation - Brown Dwarfs form from collapsing gas clouds, like normal stars, while planets form from accretion of material in a circumstellar disk. However, establishing how a particular object has formed is not an easy task, so this is not a very practical definition.
Because Brown Dwarfs cool down over time, they eventually become cool enough for dust forming in their atmospheres, and they may show atmospheric phenomena (e.g. dust clouds) similar to those we know from planets. This is one of the reasons why surface imaging, either by direct imaging or with Doppler imaging, would be very interesting.
Distance between Uranus and the sun (Score:2, Funny)
Old news... (Score:1, Troll)
Re:Old news... (Score:2)
Re:Old news... (Score:2)
READ THE ARTICLE (Score:1)
In a first, object near a star caught on camera
January 7, 2002 Posted: 3:20 PM EST (2020 GMT)
From the slashdot.org posting...
Posted by timothy on Monday January 07, @10:15PM
I'd like to know how this was posted on slashdot before...considering this story was released to the mainstream media only a few hours before the slashdot post, and I didnt see any duplicates today!
As you may know if you read this article opposed to similar posted in the past... this is the first IMAGE, not the first DISCOVERY of a planet outside our solar system...
so.. to coin a new acronym... RTFA
Read The Freakin Article
Re:READ THE ARTICLE - It was a joke! (Score:1)
I mean...
Adam... as in Adam and Eve. Get it?
Still, it wasn't funny, but I at leat got your gist tunah.
Re:READ THE ARTICLE (Score:1)
Now here's what's funny ... (Score:3, Funny)
I'd love to talk with him now
Re:Now here's what's funny ... (Score:3, Insightful)
--jeff
Re:Now here's what's funny ... (Score:2)
--jeff
Re:Now here's what's funny ... (Score:4, Interesting)
Perhaps once could infer that there is no intelligent life on other planets based on theological complications with Jesus having to die for their sins too, but even that is speculation beyond what the book says.
The Bible has very little to say about scientific matters, despite what many theologians and Bible thumpers have decided up over the years. You would think people would have learned that making up stuff, claiming it was based on the Bible, and then getting trashed by the facts would have become unpopular since Galileo. BTW, the theoligians that disagreed with Galileo were following Aristotlean arguments not the Bible. Once again, the bible never says the earth was the center of the universe, etc. The Bible mentions the sun rising, etc. and people have inferred that the earth is at the center becuase of such language -- however, this is merely descriptive of the apparent sunrise, I can even read the sunrise & sunset times in the morning paper, and I am pretty sure that publisher know that earth orbits the sun, and the sun-rise is simply appearance, not a literal sun-rise.
Back to topic
Let's face it, the ability to directly image anything outside the solar system is pretty amazing. It was not very long ago that Betelgeuse was imaged as the first star (as a disk, not a point source).
There are some very interesting large-baseline telescopes that have been proposed that would theoretically allow imaging details of planets in other solar systems, alas they budget for such projects may be some time in coming.
It's still a long way to the nearest star. With current tech, would be be very lucky to get a large ship moving at 1 percent light speed, so we will have to settle for pictures for some time to come. Where is Zephran Cochran when you need him?
Re:Now here's what's funny ... (Score:1, Interesting)
Logically, they must therefore also believe in the existance of planets...
For more info (in Spanish): http://www.elmundo.es/elmundo/2002/01/07/ciencia/
Now I don't know if your Physics teacher was Catholic or not, but in any case...
Not a planet, a star (Score:1, Insightful)
So this isn't a planet orbiting a star, but would better be described as two starts orbiting each other, much like Alpha Centauri proxima (the dwarf one)
Well...neither really (Score:4, Informative)
Lastly, it is important to not confuse brown dwarves (almost stars) with white dwarves (dying stars).
Re:Well...neither really (Score:2, Informative)
As correctly stated above, the definition of a star (ie. from 0.08 to 50x the sun) is something that's undergoing fusion in the core, which is the energy source for the star.
The reason that brown dwarfs (and Jupiter) don't become stars is that when they initially formed out of condensing gas, there was not enough material (and thus enough mass) to generate enough pressure at the center of the body to start nuclear fusion. Only when there's high enough pressure, temperature, and density can a star begin fusion. And gaseous bodies with less that 0.08 our sun's mass can't do this, by the laws of hydrostatics (static fluid calculations). Hope this helps!
80 Jupiters = 1/15 Sun (Score:2)
The body is closer to the size of the Sun than Jupiter.
Still brown dwarves are important to study and may be very common in the universe.
I've gone colour-blind! (Score:1, Offtopic)
Doesn't look that brown to me!
Then again, I believe that black holes aren't that black either
Re:I've gone colour-blind! (Score:2, Funny)
Re:I've gone colour-blind! (Score:1)
And we can still make fun of the Amish too.
ummm, excuse me... (Score:5, Informative)
What ever happene dto Gliese 229?
That was imaged back quite a while ago by a caltech team.
I found papers about it at Jean Schnieder's webpage [obspm.fr], but not a listing...
Re: Mod up. (Score:5, Informative)
On closer examination, the Gemini North press release [gemini.edu] does not claim to be the first to image a brown dwarf; from the site:"The faint companion is separated from its parent star by less than the distance between the Sun and the planet Uranus and is the smallest separation brown dwarf companion seen with direct imaging". It is only the CNN story that incorrectly claims this.....Hmmmm perhaps a notification [badastronomy.com] is in order.
Re:ummm, excuse me... (Score:2)
And yes, that was the first direct image of a sub-stellar object outside the Solar System. CNN's science writers could use a clue.
[TMB]
Re:ummm, excuse me... (Score:2)
Looking at the pictures, I think the new parent star is much brighter than 229, and the brown dwarf much closer, so this is indeed a step forward. It just isn't as big a step as you'd think from the CNN article. The CNN sub-head "the closest ever observed around a star through direct imaging" may be accurate, but the headline "In a first, object near a star caught on camera" is misleading, at least.
Link & Images of Gliese 229 (Score:1)
http://www.solstation.com/stars/gl229.htm
Gliese 229B (Score:1)
Here are a couple of Google searches, for the images and spectra:
http://www.google.com/search?q=gliese+229B+imag
http://www.google.com/search?q=gliese+229B+spec
Time-lapse pictures (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Time-lapse pictures (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Time-lapse pictures (Score:1)
Unless the parent star is very massive. It's still probably a pretty long period though.
Telescopes have improved (Score:4, Informative)
Now we can see surface features on stars and even objects orbiting them. Pretty cool. Imagine what an orbiting interferometer will do!
Re:Telescopes have improved (Score:4, Interesting)
If you take a look at the original image released (in the CNN story), the point is that the scientists were able to see the planet separately from the star, on its own, for the first time. Up until now, it has generally only been inferred that those planets exist, based on the wobble of the parent star, or appearance/disappearance of elements in the spectrum.
Both the star and the planet are point objects. There is no detail you can see on either, even though they seem to have "diameter". This is just diffraction at work.
Re:Telescopes have improved (Score:1)
Just get in the way, I'd imagine
Please Oh Please... (Score:2, Funny)
I am almost certain it can be done. Someone out there must have the technology.
:)
First what? Please, check your notes (Score:2, Informative)
Re:First what? Please, check your notes (Score:1)
It should be read as "...imaged a brown dwarf, Gliese 229B, orbiting a star".
Re:First what? Please, check your notes (Score:1)
huble space telescope obsolite? (Score:4, Interesting)
( I submitted an artical about it to slashdot a month or so ago, but it was rejected..)
Re: Hubble Space Telescope obsolete? (Score:4, Informative)
As for the HST's future, it's scheduled for EOL at the end of the decade. Check out NASA's Next Generation Space Telescope [nasa.gov] page for its successor.
Re:huble space telescope obsolite? (Score:4, Informative)
- AO works by measuring the distortions in the atmosphere and then compensating for them. But light from different parts of your field take slightly different paths through the atmosphere, and so are not perfectly corrected. As you get farther and farther away from the point where you measured the distortion, your corrections get worse and worse. The amount of sky that you can correct at once is quite small.
- In order to measure the distortions, you need a bright star that you can take as a point source. So bright that only about 1% of the sky is accessible. Artificial stars are still unreliable (but getting better).
- AO-corrected images have a really weird point spread function (PSF)... you have a fairly large halo of light around a sharp peak in the centre. Great for finding points, but hard for measuring how bright the entire thing is.
- The atmosphere blocks out a hell of a lot of the UV and IR light. No way of getting that back without going above the atmosphere.
So HST still has very unique capabilities. And just wait until we start seeing science out of the ACIS instrument!
[TMB]
So... (Score:4, Funny)
Re:So... (Score:1)
More on adaptive optics... (Score:1)
http://cfao.ucolick.org/ [ucolick.org]
Somewhat misleading title... (Score:1)
Nasa Image Of Star-Like Body Within Solar System (Score:2)
-
the technical article (Score:2, Interesting)
Adaptive optics and the Moon (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:Adaptive optics and the Moon (Score:1)
Be polite - be politically correct! (Score:4, Funny)
Photoshop? (Score:1)
Leet. Sounds like they've got hardware Photoshop filters.
First?? (Score:1)
Nah, I've got a few pictures of the wife and kids standing on Earth.
-----
What?! (Score:2)
Maybe it was my eyes (Score:1)
wakka wakka wakka (Score:1)
Re:Let me get this straight... (Score:2)
By the way, while you are on your campaign to protect innocent lives, you better take on drunk drivers, pollution, serial killers, cigarettes (maybe not innocent, but still..) AIDs victims (especially in '3rd world countries'), etc. You better get moving.
Re:Let me get this straight... (Score:2)
Thus, he also proved that science did not end with the Bible, as many people believed.
Re:I dont get it... (Score:1)