First photo of planet outside our solar system

BenjAii

Well it still just looks like an orange dot, but one day i'm sure we'll start seeing green & blue dots ....

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn16033-first-images-captured-of-alien-solar-system.html

Scruff

great stuff!

here is another link with more photos
http://gizmodo.com/5086678/astronomers-take-first-ever-pics-of-other-planetary-systems

AtomicHorror

Pretty sure we actually did have a supposed direct image of an exoplanet before... though the mass made it borderline to a brown dwarf I think. Perhaps they retracted it. At any rate, this is pretty exciting news. Fomalhaut b looks to be shepherding that star's proto planetary disk. There might be more to find in there.

Looks like another big year for exoplanet discoveries. Might even be a record year if we find another 6 before January...

BenjAii

The ESA have a proposed mission post 2015 called Darwin that would be able to image earth size planets & analyze their atmosphere, I wish they would hurry up & do it; I can't think of a more important goal for space exploration that this. It would finally answer the question is there life elsewhere in the universe.

When you think about it the fact that there is still such a question mark over the fact that this might be possible is a hang-up from assumptions in Judeo-Christian culture, when rationally there would have to be life else where in the universe, in fact rationally it must be teeming with life.

sz_danii

great stuff ... thanks for the link !

AtomicHorror

BenjAii wrote: »

The ESA have a proposed mission post 2015 called Darwin that would be able to image earth size planets & analyze their atmosphere, I wish they would hurry up & do it; I can't think of a more important goal for space exploration that this. It would finally answer the question is there life elsewhere in the universe.

When you think about it the fact that there is still such a question mark over the fact that this might be possible is a hang-up from assumptions in Judeo-Christian culture, when rationally there would have to be life else where in the universe, in fact rationally it must be teeming with life.

We imagine so, but right now it's anyone's guess. I'm inclined to say life must be common as the systems we're seeing are not radically dissimilar to our own (taking observational bias into account). Very exciting indeed.