Many folks would like to see us back on the Moon and developing its resources.

Friday, November 14, 2008

Hubble Directly Observes a Planet Orbiting Another Star

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Hubble Directly Observes a Planet Orbiting Another Star
http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2008/13nov_fomalhaut.htm?list965414

Nov. 13, 2008: NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has taken the first
visible-light snapshot of a planet circling another star. Estimated to
be no more than three times Jupiter's mass, the planet, called
Fomalhaut b, orbits the bright southern star Fomalhaut, located 25
light-years away in the constellation Piscis Australis, or the
"Southern Fish."
snip
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Julian alerted me to the BBC link on this discovery (see below) and I
had skipped over the SpaceRef link in looking at their latest post.
(also below).
I had only looked at the Science @ NASA link here (above and below).

Here is another NASA link.
http://www.nasa.gov/home/hqnews/2008/nov/HQ_08-289_Hubble_planet.html

Now if the Hubble repair mission gets launched and is successful maybe
we will have more discoveries.
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/hubble/main/index.html

We have gone from thinking that everything revolves around us to
seeing we are just a spec amongst many.

Now if someone can just see the blinking of some Morse Code on one of
these planets wouldn't that be something to talk about.
Where did I put my signaling LASER?


Thanks for looking up with me.


Larry Kellogg

Web Site: http://lkellogg.vttoth.com/LarryRussellKellogg/
BlogSpot: http://kelloggserialreports.blogspot.com/
RSS link: http://kelloggserialreports.blogspot.com/atom.xml
Newsletter: https://news.altair.com/mailman/listinfo/lunar-update
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Hubble Directly Observes a Planet Orbiting Another Star
http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2008/13nov_fomalhaut.htm?list965414

Nov. 13, 2008: NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has taken the first
visible-light snapshot of a planet circling another star. Estimated to
be no more than three times Jupiter's mass, the planet, called
Fomalhaut b, orbits the bright southern star Fomalhaut, located 25
light-years away in the constellation Piscis Australis, or the
"Southern Fish."

Fomalhaut has been a candidate for planet hunting ever since an excess
of dust (a telltale sign of planet formation) was discovered around
the star in the early 1980s by NASA's Infrared Astronomy Satellite,
IRAS.

In 2004, the coronagraph in the High Resolution Camera on Hubble's
Advanced Camera for Surveys produced the first-ever resolved
visible-light image of the region around Fomalhaut. (Note: A
coronagraph is a device that can block the bright light of a central
star to reveal faint objects around it.) It clearly showed a ring of
protoplanetary debris approximately 21.5 billion miles across and
having a sharp inner edge.

This large debris disk is similar to the Kuiper Belt, which encircles
the solar system and contains a range of icy bodies from dust grains
to objects the size of dwarf planets, such as Pluto.

Hubble astronomer Paul Kalas, of the University of California at
Berkeley, and team members proposed in 2005 that the ring was being
gravitationally modified or "shepherded" by a planet lying between the
star and the ring's inner edge.

Now, Hubble has actually photographed a point source of light lying
1.8 billion miles inside the ring's inner edge. The results are being
reported in the November 14 issue of Science magazine.

snip
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Exoplanets finally come into view
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/7725584.stm

The first pictures of planets outside our Solar System have been
taken, two groups report in the journal Science.

Visible and infrared images have been snapped of a planet orbiting a
star 25 light-years away.

The planet is believed to be the coolest, lowest-mass object ever seen
outside our own solar neighbourhood.

In a separate study, an exoplanetary system, comprising three planets,
has been directly imaged, circling a star in the constellation
Pegasus.

While several claims have been made to such direct detection before,
they have later been proven wrong or await confirmation.

The search for exoplanets has up to now depended on detecting either
the wobble they induce in their parent star or, if their orbits are
side-on to telescopes, watching them dim the star's light as they pass
in front of it.

Being able to directly detect the light from these planets will allow
astronomers to study their composition and atmospheres in detail.

snip
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Hubble Telescope
http://www.spaceref.com/video/hubble_telescope.html

Hubble Directly Observes Planet Orbiting

After eight years and repeated photographs of a nearby star in hopes
of finding planets, University of California, Berkeley, astronomer
Paul Kalas finally has his prize: the first visible-light snapshots of
a planet outside our solar system.

[Nice YouTube video - LRK -]
snip
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WHAT THE MIND CAN CONCEIVE, AND BELIEVE, IT WILL ACHIEVE - LRK

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