Powerful Planet Finder Turns Its Eye to the Sky; First image shows planet orbiting around another st - Polidicks

[QUOTE]After nearly a decade of development, construction and testing, the world's most advanced instrument for directly imaging and analyzing planets around other stars is pointing skyward and collecting light from distant worlds. The instrument, called the Gemini Planet Imager (GPI), was designed, built, and optimized for imaging giant planets next to bright stars, in addition to studying dusty disks around young stars. It is the most advanced instrument of its kind to be deployed on one of the world's biggest telescopes - the 26-foot (8-meter) Gemini South telescope in Chile. Imaging a planet next to a star is a tricky task. The planet is much fainter than its star, and also appears very close. These challenges make the act of separating the planet's light from the glare of the star difficult. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., contributed to the project by designing and building an ultra-precise infrared sensor to measure small distortions in starlight that might mask a planet.[/QUOTE] [img]http://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/betapic.jpg[/img] [quote]This image taken by the Gemini Planet Imager (GPI) shows a planet orbiting the star Beta Pictoris. In addition to the image, the GPI obtains spectral information from every pixel element in the field of view, allowing scientists to study the planet in great detail.[/quote] [url=http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?release=2014-008]Source[/url] [B]SCIENCE![/B]

Fuck yeah, and in 10-20 years we'll have instruments powerful enough to give us detailed (but slightly pixelated) images of these other worlds

[QUOTE=Killer900;43455924]Fuck yeah, and in 10-20 years we'll have instruments powerful enough to give us detailed (but slightly pixelated) images of these other worlds[/QUOTE] If 10-20 for slightly pixelated pictures of other planets, how long until Google Maps Planet Edition

[QUOTE=Thomo_UK;43455940]If 10-20 for slightly pixelated pictures of other planets, how long until Google Maps Planet Edition[/QUOTE] Google Interstellar. A catalogue of stars, and other phenomenon in our neck of the galactic woods.

[QUOTE=Bradyns;43456118]Google Interstellar. A catalogue of stars, and other phenomenon in our neck of the galactic woods.[/QUOTE] [url]http://www.google.com/sky/[/url]

[QUOTE=Thomo_UK;43455940]If 10-20 for slightly pixelated pictures of other planets, how long until Google Maps Planet Edition[/QUOTE] [url]http://www.google.com/mars/[/url]

[QUOTE=Killer900;43455924]Fuck yeah, and in 10-20 years we'll have instruments powerful enough to give us detailed (but slightly pixelated) images of these other worlds[/QUOTE] not in the visible spectrum though. It would be modified color because of redshift and the limitations of the telescope.

[QUOTE=areolop;43456167]not in the visible spectrum though. It would be modified color because of redshift and the limitations of the telescope.[/QUOTE] If the light is shifted out of the visible spectrum by distance, couldn't we acquire visible-light images by compensating for that? We can calculate that sort of thing.

[QUOTE=Bradyns;43456118]Google Interstellar. A catalogue of stars, and other phenomenon in our neck of the galactic woods.[/QUOTE] Google will become an independent super-computer roaming the space gathering information for people to search for.

[QUOTE=MrBob1337;43456434]If the light is shifted out of the visible spectrum by distance[/QUOTE] sorry to split hairs but red shifting happens because an object is moving away, not because it is distant. Or is that what you were implying?

[QUOTE=lolman122;43458052]sorry to split hairs but red shifting happens because an object is moving away, not because it is distant. Or is that what you were implying?[/QUOTE] Because the object is distant, it takes a long time for the light to travel to us. During this time the universe expands, stretching the wave of light, pushing it down the spectrum towards longer wavelengths.

[QUOTE=Bat-shit;43456802]Google will become an independent super-computer roaming the space gathering information for people to search for.[/QUOTE] When all things on this world have been googled, google must find new worlds of things.

[QUOTE=luck_or_loss;43458195]Because the object is distant, it takes a long time for the light to travel to us. During this time the universe expands, stretching the wave of light, pushing it down the spectrum towards longer wavelengths.[/QUOTE] Oh shit that's so cool! Science is fun

[QUOTE=SCopE5000;43456151][URL]http://www.google.com/sky/[/URL][/QUOTE] [thumb]http://i.imgur.com/xtpT113.png[/thumb] how crazy is it that i can hop on there and see physical bodies which may or may not be, but i certainly hope they are, orbiting a star which is an unfathomable number of light years away from a time from a time that may very well be older than our planet itself? and that's not even a very cool thing to be seeing. sweet universe, ours is.

[url]http://www.planethunters.org/[/url] Just something if you want to hunt for planets

[QUOTE=Most wanteD;43458488][thumb]http://i.imgur.com/xtpT113.png[/thumb] how crazy is it that i can hop on there and see physical bodies which may or may not be, but i certainly hope they are, orbiting a star which is an unfathomable number of light years away from a time from a time that may very well be older than our planet itself? and that's not even a very cool thing to be seeing. sweet universe, ours is.[/QUOTE] Those are most likely imaging glitches.

Maybe that planet might have life on it?

[QUOTE=Killer900;43455924]Fuck yeah, and in 10-20 years we'll have instruments powerful enough to give us detailed (but slightly pixelated) images of these other worlds[/QUOTE] But how many years until we could see mud huts on the surface of potentially habitable worlds?

[QUOTE=Bradyns;43456118]Google Interstellar. A catalogue of stars, and other phenomenon in our neck of the galactic woods.[/QUOTE] [url]http://www.stellarium.org/[/url] 210 million catalogued stars in that software.