First visible-light image of a planet orbiting another star.

[Ichingcarpenter]

Achieving a feat that seemed impossible not so long ago, a team of scientists working with the Hubble Space Telescope captured the first visible-light image of a planet orbiting another star (above and inset). On the same day as this announcement, last November 14, came the report of a related breakthrough using the ground-based Gemini and Keck observatories in Hawaii, with which astronomers captured the first infrared image of three planets orbiting a star. A week later, another exoplanet candidate was spotted in infrared—this time by the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope—orbiting the hot, bright star Beta Pictoris.










http://discovermagazine.com/2009/feb/17-our-first-glimpse-of-an-alien-world

[midnight]

1. Beautiful......

[navarth]

2. fantastic. thanks. n/t

[emilyg]

3. Thanks.

[Scriptor Ignotus]

4. looks like the eye of Sauron...nt