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Coffee House => Coffee House Boards => CH / Science and Technology => Topic started by: blobrana on April 01, 2005, 09:04:29 PM

Title: First confirmed picture of an alien planet
Post by: blobrana on April 01, 2005, 09:04:29 PM

 Hum,
The first confirmed picture of an exoplanet.

(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v328/blobrana/FIRSTPLANETphotob2.jpg) (http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v328/blobrana/FIRSTPLANETphoto.jpg)

The planet has a temperature of about 2000 Kelvin (it`s still forming), though the presence of water in the planet's atmosphere was detected. The new found world is 1.8 times the diameter of Jupiter, with a mass estimated to be one to two times that of Jupiter.
The planet orbits 103 ± 37 AU from the T Tauri star, GQ Lupi.

< another image > (http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v328/blobrana/gqlupB.jpg)

"We should expect that the planet orbits around the star, but at its large separation one orbital period is roughly 1,200 years, so that orbital motion is not yet detected." - Prof. Ralph Neuhaeuser.

"It is unlikely, but not impossible, that the planet formed at that large separation, because circumstellar disks around other stars often are that large or even larger."

The K7 star, GQ Lupi, is only about 1 million years old, and found in a star-forming region about 400 light-years away. It has 70 % the mass of the Sun.

Position (http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v328/blobrana/GQLupi.jpg)(2000): RA = 15 49 12.144 , DEC = -35 39 03.95

Original story (pdf) (http://xxx.lanl.gov/PS_cache/astro-ph/pdf/0503/0503691.pdf)

History in the making....
 :-)

Title: Re: First confirmed picture of an alien planet
Post by: Speelgoedmannetje on April 01, 2005, 09:23:05 PM

wow :-o

I thought they only could detect exoplanets theoretically, by the lightly swinging of a star caused by a VERY big planet (like, Jupiter).
But now apparently they can even determine what kind of atmosphere the planet has!

Title: Re: First confirmed picture , yes really...
Post by: blobrana on April 01, 2005, 10:42:20 PM

Yeah,
Incredible huh...

And slightly better than NASA`s  Water found on Mars (http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/image/0504/WaterOnMars2_gcc.jpg) news story also published today.... :-)

Title: Re: First confirmed picture , yes really...
Post by: cecilia on April 02, 2005, 01:17:27 AM

:roflmao:

as to the new planet: looks like my new summer home (yeah, right) :lol:

Title: Re: First confirmed picture , yes really...
Post by: Karlos on April 02, 2005, 02:21:21 PM

April fools?

(the original picture I mean) :-)

Wow, that water on mars is fascinating. Figurative and literal all at once ;-)

Title: Re: First confirmed picture , yes really...
Post by: blobrana on April 02, 2005, 03:42:07 PM

No
it`s real... (yes, really)


(anyway from what i heard April fools day Has been moved to April 15th)

Title: Re: First confirmed picture of an alien planet
Post by: whabang on April 03, 2005, 12:51:04 AM

:-o

Title: Re: First confirmed picture of an alien planet
Post by: Generale on April 09, 2005, 12:58:49 PM

Sure, they say they can detect things like water with that method.
But I have a doubt. Is there any other means of proving or disproving the presence of water vapour? Because if there isn't, then how can they say for sure that it's water vapour they are detecting and not something entirely different.

Anyway, I think new planets are cool.
If it wasn't for the hostile void of space, the high chance of dying etc, I'd love to be an astronaut!