Planets found around other stars

I agree, it's quite cool.

Formalhaut b - interesting name choice.

Thanks for the link dmc.

 

Its really interesting stuff. I loved astronomy when I was in school (back in the day). They can track most planets by watching the gravitational pull on its star, however what they have done so far is pretty simple because they are looking at huge stars which ofcourse will only turn up gas giants or planets which mimic Mercury with heats so intense youll find lead in a gasseous state. We can only see smaller planets (at this point in time) by viewing the shadow against the star, in 2009 NASA are planning to monitor nearly 200,000 stars for the shadows of planets the size of Earth, they are calling the operation 'Kepler'


Here is a quote from Robert Irion's "The Farthest Horizons"

 

Didn`t they find some enormous planet, just outside our solar-system, some years ago? About 200 times the size of our planet, with 12 moons. I think it was something like that.

 

Something like 200 extra-solar planets have been discovered, but these are the first that have been photographed.

 

thought this would have been a more popular thread myself

 

I agree.

 

I dont really understand why this is a big deal. Something I saw about the size of other stars compared to Earth made me raise an eyebrow. And some video about the sheer infinite scale of space I saw on Youtube. This doesn't inspire much awe though. They found some more planets, yippee.

 

i think it's pretty cool to have pics of 'em

sounds a bit like the name for a rapper doesn't it?

 

I live for this kind of news. There are about 10^22 stars in the universe and the accretion disks swirling around stars which eventually form planets are everywhere.

The photographs are certainly unimpressive on sight. With a little perspective, however, they are extraordinary. Our relatively unsophisticated technology limits us now to such low resolution verification of huge, uninhabitable accretions - but not forever. Before my end (I hope) we will know of inhabital (and inhabited) planets elsewhere.

This is a beginning.

 

I wouldnt be surprised if we find a planet that could theoretically support life, if it doesnt already. It is always awesome to find that we have found more planets in the galaxy, yet more proof that we were never ever the centre of the universe.

 

...Heh, well actually each of us and any single point in space is the center of the universe since/if the universe keeps expanding into every direction...

 

Well, yeah...have to give you that one.

I think you know what I mean though...we arent put here by any gods so that good and evil can battle it out for the sake of the salvation of whatever whatever, the nonsense my old christian flatmate would tell me. The universe is no doubt full of life, life we could never imagine. We dont know if the planets we are looking at have life or not, they may or they may not. You just have to be agnostic about it.

 

Nataraja,
How can you be a respectable agnostic if you don't accept the fact that *maybe* good and evil *are* fighting for your soul (and mostly your sexuality, God and Satan seem to be locked in a fierce battle over your sexual orientation)? You need to up your agnostic game.

I agree with you completely that the universe is full of life. Even if the chances are a quintillion to one that another star harbors life (1,000,000,000,000,000,000 to 1) there would still be tens of thousands of intelligent beings posting to websites such as this one commenting on the possiblity of other beings posting about them.

Iku-Turso,
I could not dislike you if I tried.

 

Well, Im not agnostic, Im hindu, so the whole 'good vs evil' thing is essentially meaningless. Sexuality is fluid and never is 100% this or that. But these are topics for other threads, not this one.