Thursday, November 13, 2008

Photos of Another Planet

Bad Astronomy writes in Discover HUGE EXOPLANET NEWS ITEMS: PICTURES!!! "For the first time, ever, astronomers have captured an optical image of a planet orbiting a star like our own. And that’s not all: we also have a second picture showing TWO planets orbiting a second star!" Here's the first one, taken by the Hubble:

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Click the image to see details about the photo. The star is black spot, it's blocked out of the image to avoid washing it out from the brightness. The radial lines are optical illusions but the ring is real. The star, Fomalhaut, is the brightest star in Aquarius and is just 25 light years away. The planet's orbit is 4 times larger than Neptune's and is probably about the mass of Jupiter.

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