Likely First Photo of Planet Beyond the Solar System

A group of European-led astronomers has made a photograph of what appears to be a planet orbiting another star. If so, it would be the first confirmed picture of a world beyond our solar system.

"Although it is surely much bigger than a terrestrial-size object [like Earth], it is a strange feeling that it may indeed be the first planetary system beyond our own ever imaged," said Christophe Dumas, an astronomer at the European Southern Observatory.

www.space.com...

Each day new planets are being discovered beyond our own solar system. The group who found this recent planet are based out of Europe.

As fantasic as this discovery COULD be, I think we should concentrate on the planet we are on right now instead of looking at the stars (well unless theyre looking for giant meteors that smash planets to smithereeens)

I think the only reason why they try to discover new planets is so they have some where to go once theyve killed this one off.

Sapphy is a Tree Hugging Dirt Worshipper and proud of it.

Someday, it may be a discovery beyond Earth, that may end up being
the saviour of Earth.

Never stop learning, you'll never know what you don't know, until you know it.
You know?

That's funny how good those pics are of another star and planet... Yet the pics we have of Pluto and Charon are completely fuzzy. It seems as though those are closer to us than Pluto. I guess the sunlight on the giants planet helps, but still.

If we spend all our time trying to fix everything on earth and never focus on space we will have a nice Eutopia a couple of years before the sun goes super nova and kills everyone In about 4 billion years time.

We will be dead long before that if we dont get off our planet. Human population itself will doom us all in the next few hundred years.

I think the images are done by an artist, thats why they say likely image because they base it off what they know of the planet then look at our own planets in our solar system and then create what they think the planet will look like.
They detect new planets by looking at all the stars and if any dim,then its likely something has moved passed it. Which in this case it they have figured out its a planet.

I think im right

The Star is a brown dwarf.

Thats beneficial for imaging objects near it, as they are not overwhelmed
by the brightness.

Itz looks convinceing in a sense but, it also looks fake in a way/ mainly b/c it looks like it was drawn!

So whats it like a Jupiter size planet with a really close orbit to a dwarf star then?

Originally posted by SapphireHarlequin
As fantasic as this discovery COULD be, I think we should concentrate on the planet we are on right now instead of looking at the stars (well unless theyre looking for giant meteors that smash planets to smithereeens)

Nice thought but it will never happen. The only way we would seriously try to save our planet is if our backs were against the wall in some way. Most people are too distracted with daily life to care about what's going on around them and as long as corporations are in charge we will never have a strong effort put forth to change our ways. Were truly are in a catch-22 situation of our own making.

I hope we continue to explore space both astronomically and through manned missions though. Someday, when the Earth is truly in jeopardy, getting some of us off this planet to a new one may be the only hope for our species. Also, if we can manage to colonize even our own solar system, it would take a lot of pressure off the planet from a population stand point. Religious beliefs, ignorance and poverty will never allow us to seriously control our own population growth so we might as well keep looking for more room.

DarkHelmet

That's funny how good those pics are of another star and planet... Yet the pics we have of Pluto and Charon are completely fuzzy. It seems as though those are closer to us than Pluto. I guess the sunlight on the giants planet helps, but still.

Yeah, it does seem kind of strange. Every other image of a star I've seen is just a point of light. And I've never seen an image of another planet outside our solar system.

It must be because it's an infrared image (a heat image), and not an image taken in the "visible" spectrum.

Just guessing ...

Whatever happened to the supposed 10th planet discovered in our solar system? It was named Sedna, or something like that.

ESO research team has not yet confirmed that it is actually a planet. It has been grouped as GPCC (Giant Planet Companion Candidate). So, they need at least 1-2 years to observe its motion around the dwarf star 2M1207 and then to decide if it's a planet. It has 5 times as much mass as Jupiter and the brown dwarf is 40 times lighter than the sun or only 25 times massive than Jupiter. Further, the candidate is 55 times farther from the dwarf star than the earth-sun distance.
However there are more hopes with this one this time:
"On several occasions during the past years, astronomical images revealed faint objects, seen near much brighter stars. Some of these have been thought to be those of orbiting exoplanets, but after further study, none of them could stand up to the real test. Some turned out to be faint stellar companions, others were entirely unrelated background stars. This one may well be different...None of the available observations contradict that it may be an exoplanet in orbit around 2M1207."
I guess we will know better when the analysis of the data is completed.

The interesting thing is the possibility of water on it as markjaxson pointed out earlier.
"The feeble object is more than 100 times fainter than 2M1207 and its near-infrared spectrum was obtained with great efforts in June 2004 by NACO, at the technical limit of the powerful facility. This spectrum shows the signatures of water molecules and confirms that the object must be comparatively small and light."

Press release of the finding: www.eso.org...

DarkHelmet, the reason why the picture is so clear is because this possible candidate for a giant planet seems to be in an early formation phase when it's extremely hot and very bright showing a bright IR picture. Further, brown dwarfs hardly emit any visible light.
"Brown dwarf objects are "failed stars", i.e. bodies too small for nuclear processes to have ignited in their interior and now producing energy by contraction. They emit almost no visible light. Like the Sun and the giant planets in the solar system, they are composed mainly of hydrogen gas, perhaps with swirling cloud belts."

Also, we have gotten some great pictures of pluto. Check these out:
antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov...
antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov...
antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov...
(True colors are still not that clear though)

ShadowXIX
If we spend all our time trying to fix everything on earth and never focus on space we will have a nice Eutopia a couple of years before the sun goes super nova and kills everyone In about 4 billion years time.

How about doing both? I don't think we should ever stop space exploration. It is always good to at least try to learn why we are here and if there are others there! By the way, our Sun will destroy us during its red giant phase, it will not go into an supernova explosion because it is not massive enough for the same.

[edit on 11-9-2004 by jp1111]

jp1111 are these exoplanets, planet size moons orbiting this giant of a planet? 5 times bigger than Jupiter One thing about these new gas giant planets they find Is that they might have moons like Jupiters Europa perhaps with a even warmer enviorment. Moons might be the norm for life not planets.

Your also right about the red giant phase. It will kill us all the same though.We really have to get out of this galaxy not just off this planet if humans are to survive. The Milky Way and Andromeda galaxy are on a collision course! In about 3 billion years. Both galaxies are not going to be a place where you will want to be when this happens.

The Milky way is what 100,000 light years across and if we wanted to reach another galaxy its so much farther. We better get a move on.

[edit on 11-9-2004 by ShadowXIX]