Planets going around another star.
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Budgieye
moderator
lI never thought that I would see this image. Link to animation
It is truly amazing to see something like this (which would have been
science fiction not so long ago.) Star HR 8799 in the constellation
Pegasus (masked out here) is 129 light years away and shines five
times brighter than the Sun. All the planets seen here are larger than
Jupiter. These images were taken at the Keck Observatory, Hawaii over
the course of several years to reveal the motions of the planets
orbiting this star.Resolution such as this is only possible with large multi-metre
telescopes equipped with adaptive optics. You can read more about this
remarkable animation here:
https://astrobiology.nasa.gov/…/a-four-planet-system-in-or…/Posted
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Very impressive and awe-inspiring discovery! Astronomy is progressing so fast nowadays it's almost unbelievable.
After thinking about it two things stand out for me:
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the exoplanets must be really far away from their host star looking at the years of imaging and part of their orbital period they've travelled. Especially the exoplanet at far left.
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apparently the complete system is (exactly?) perpendicular to the Solar system, must be a bit of luck to get a movie of orbiting exoplanets around a nearby star?
EDIT: which is ofcourse a ridiculous assumption, it depends on our view angle. So what I meant is 'perpendicular to our view angle' sigh.
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Budgieye
moderator
Planets are 14.5, 24, 38 and 68 AU away from star, which is a bit bigger and brighter than our Sun. So AU would be equivalent of Uranus, Neptune, Pluto and Eris distances. Prediscovery was made by looking at Hubble images.
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ElisabethB
moderator
in response to Budgieye's comment.
That is just WOW ! 😄
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Just been watching BBC's Click today, from the JPL. The reporter said that no planets had yet been seen and went on to show a sun-screen, which is being developed there - this will block out a sun, enabling any planets to be seen.
However, this is a very impressive result - and where we see one, soon we will be seeing a lot of planets.
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Budgieye
moderator
After some reading, it seems that these planets are uncommonly bright, possibly borderline brown dwarfs.
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Ghost_Sheep_SWR
in response to johnfairweather's comment.
Bit confused now, since it states 'Directly imaged', and I can't watch BBC Click due to copyright issues... 😕
But also: Wang said that the animation is based on eight observations of the planets since 2009. He then used a motion interpolation algorithm to draw the orbit between those points.
Am I falling for an exaggerated media title for something not-so-special again?
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JeanTate
Jaw-dropping! 😮
Does anyone know if the observations the animation is based on have been written up in a paper (even if any such is still a preprint)?
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BioMiep
This is deeply moving to me. I felt the same way when my father showed me the first clear pictures of Mars and later some of the first moving images from Mars. I can't believe we have come so far in just my lifetime from only blurry pictures from our own solar system in large colorful picture books to actually putting a machine out there on the surface, shooting video clips like it's nothing. This one is on a whole new level. I can't even begin to realize how awesome this actually is. Won't be long until this animation becomes actual footage. Even thought this is an animation derived from data, i don't think that diminishes it at all. Just like what we do here, you better have an idea first about what you're going to point several truckloads of dolars worth of equipment at.
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Budgieye
moderator
I remember seeing the first clear picture of Mars, and I was so disappointed -- no canals for sure now.
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BioMiep
Ahh, but some of the other stunning pictures though! You gotta admit, it's all so beautiful. Some features that we all thought were something really interesting were a bit dissapointing, yes but that color palette. All those unearthly features. You can clearly see some forces have been at work there that the Earth has never experienced. Such a completely different realm alltogether. They're all interesting really. all the planets and moons. If there are aliens out there, they should take me on a tour... yesterday! We're unfortunately in this gap where our generations will probably never travel there. What a time to be alive though, all this exploration. Realize how crazy that is for a minute. We get to look at other realms up close for the first time in human history.
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