First Photo of an Exoplanet (2004)

First Photo of Exoplanet

This 2004 photograph made by the European Southern Observatory shows the first known photo of an exoplanet, or a planet beyond our solar system. The red orb at bottom left is a young planet, similar in composition to Jupiter, orbiting a brown dwarf, a dim, failed star that is probably 42 times less massive than the sun. An infrared camera, which reacts to heat rather than light, shot these photos from a distance of some 230 light-years. Photograph courtesy ESO/European Organization for Asronomical Research in the Southern HemisphereRelated Photo GalleriesMilestones in Photography Photo Gallery: National Geographic Milestones Milestones in Wildlife Photography Gallery: Underwater Milestones

First Visible Light Image of an Exoplanet

November 13, 2008: Astronomers using NASA's Hubble Space Telescope have taken the first visible-light snapshot of a planet orbiting another star. The images show the planet, named Fomalhaut b, as a tiny point source of light orbiting the nearby, bright southern star Fomalhaut, located 25 light-years away in the constellation Piscis Australis. An immense debris disk about 21.5 billion miles across surrounds the star. Fomalhaut b is orbiting 1.8 billion miles inside the disk's sharp inner edge.

First Visible Light Image of an Exoplanet

The Eye of Sauron from the Lord of

the Rings

First Visible Light Image of an ExoplanetWhat it Really is

First Four Exoplanet System Imaged

Among one of the first exoplanet systems imaged was HR 8799. In 2008, a team led by Christian Marois at the Herzberg Institute of Astrophysics in Canada, took a picture of the system directly imaging three giant planets. The team revisited the system in 2009 – 2010 with the Keck II telescope and discovered a fourth planet in the system.

First Four Exoplanet System Imagedby Jon Voisey on December 12, 2010

Following the Motion of an Exoplanet

For the first time, astronomers have been able to directly follow the motion of an exoplanet as it moves from one side of its host star to the other. The planet has the smallest orbit so far of all directly imaged exoplanets, lying almost as close to its parent star as Saturn is to the Sun. The star, beta Pictoris is only 12 million years old, and so this exoplanet confirms that gas giant planets can form very rapidly—in only a few million years—within such circumstellar disks, and experts say that this discovery validates the theory that these unique, gaseous disk structures can be used as a sort of “fingerprint” to characterize their embedded planets.

Beta Pictoris is 75% more massive than our Sun, and is located about 60 light-years away towards the constellation of Pictor (the Painter). This is one of the best-known examples of a star surrounded by a dusty debris disc. Earlier observations showed a warp of the disc, a secondary inclined disc and comets falling onto the star.“Those were indirect, but tell-tale signs that strongly suggested the presence of a massive planet, and our new observations now definitively prove this,” said team leader Anne-Marie Lagrange. “Because the star is so young, our results prove that giant planets can form in discs in time-spans as short as a few million years.”This exoplanet, dubbed Beta Pictoris b, was thought to have been spotted first in 2003, and then was first imaged back in 2008. But the astronomer couldn’t rule out definitively that the possible planet wasn’t just a foreground or background object. These new observations confirm that, indeed, the object is a gas giant planet orbiting the star.Other recent observations have shown that discs around young stars disperse within a few million years, and that giant planet formation must occur faster than previously thought.

Exoplanet Confirms Gas Giants Can Form Quicklyby Nancy Atkinson on June 10, 2010See next for description

The Story of Goldilocks and the Three Bears

The Story of Goldilocks and the Three Bears

Once upon a time, there was a little girl named Goldilocks. She went for a walk in the forest. Pretty soon, she came upon a house. She knocked and, when no one answered, she walked right in.

At the table in the kitchen, there were three bowls of porridge. Goldilocks was hungry. She tasted the porridge from the first bowl.

"This porridge is too hot!" she exclaimed.

So, she tasted the porridge from the second bowl.

"This porridge is too cold," she said

So, she tasted the last bowl of porridge.

"Ahhh, this porridge is just right," she said happily and she ate it all up.

A "Goldilocks planet" is a planet that falls within a Star’s habitable Zone, and the name is often specifically used for planets close to

the size of Earth.

In astronomy, the habitable zone (HZ) is the distance from a star where an Earth-like planet can maintain liquid water on its surface[1] and Earth-like life. The habitable zone is the intersection of two regions that must both be favorable to life; one within a planetary system, and the other within a galaxy. Planets and moons in these regions are the likeliest candidates to be habitable and thus capable of bearing extraterrestrial life similar to our own. The concept generally does not include moons, because there is insufficient evidence and theory to speculate what moons might be habitable on account of their proximity to a planet.

A "Goldilocks planet" is a planet that falls within a star's habitable zone, and the name is often specifically used for planets close to the size of Earth.[1][2] The name comes from the story of Goldilocks and the Three Bears, in which a little girl chooses from sets of three items, ignoring the ones that are too extreme (large or small, hot or cold, etc.), and settling on the one in the middle, which is "just right". Likewise, a planet following this Goldilocks Principle is one that is neither too close nor too far from a star to rule out liquid water on its surface and thus life (as humans understand it) on the planet. However, planets within a habitable zone that are unlikely to host life (e.g., gas giants) may also be called Goldilocks planets. The best example of a Goldilocks planet is the Earth itself.

KeplerA Search for Habitable Planets

NASA's first mission capable of finding Earth-size and smaller planets around other stars

General information NSSDC ID 2009-011A

Organization NASA

Major contractors Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp.

Launch date 2009-03-07, 03:49:57.465 UTC[1]

Launched from Space Launch Complex 17-BCape Canaveral Air Force Station

Launch vehicle Delta II (7925-10L) Mission length ≥ 3.5 years

elapsed: 1 year, 10 months, and 27 days

Mass 1,039 kg (2,290 lb)

Type of orbit Earth-trailing heliocentric

Orbit height 1 AU

Orbit period 372.5 days

Wavelength 400–865 nm [2]

Diameter 0.95 m (3.1 ft)

Collecting area 0.708 m2 [3]

Website kepler.nasa.gov

The Kepler Space Telescope

KeplerA Search for Habitable Planets

How it works

Light curve of the exoplanet HD189733b transit(Sept 2006, Not Kepler)

KeplerA Search for Habitable Planets

How it works

Kepler-10b

The Gliese 581 system has a set of slightly oversized terrestrial planets mirroring our own solar system's. It is currently believed that the third planet, planet c, is analogous to Venus's position (slightly too close), the fourth planet g (unconfirmed as of Oct. 2010) to the Earth/Goldilocks position, and the fifth planet d to the Mars position. Planet d may be too cold, but unlike Mars, it is several times more massive than Earth and may have a dense atmosphere to retain heat. One caveat with this system is that it orbits a red dwarf, probably resulting in most of the issues regarding habitability of red dwarf systems, such as all the planets likely being tidally locked to the star.More recently, on February 2, 2011, the Kepler Space Observatory Mission team released a list of 1,235 extrasolar planet candidates, including 54 that may be in the "habitable zone."[5][6][7]

This is in dispute

* ~ 1,235 new candidate planets

* 54 of these orbit their respective stars in habitable zones (Goldilocks)

* 68 are similar to Earth in size

* 288 are up to 10 times of the Earth's mass

* 165 are similar to Jupiter in size

* 19 are double the size of Jupiter

* 662 are Neptune-sized.

February 2011 – Kepler Mission Announcements

Follow the ProgressHistory is Being Made

NASA scientists claim that the American space agency’s orbiting telescope, Kepler, has spotted around 1,235 new candidate planets, a few of which could feature inhabitable conditions.

Out Of the 1,235 new candidate planets, 54 have been orbiting their respective stars in habitable zones (Goldilocks), where the temperature is neither too high nor too low.

Sixty-eight of the new exoplanets are similar to Earth in size, 288 are up to 10 times of the Earth's mass, 165 are similar to Jupiter in size, 19 are double the size of Jupiter and 662 are Neptune-sized.

Focus on word CANDIDATES. Not 100% demonstrated yet.

February 2011

Follow the ProgressHistory is Being Made

Follow the ProgressHistory is Being Made

Kepler Mission Homepage

SETI

Follow the ProgressHistory is Being Made

October 2011 – Adaptive Optics Keck Observatory Hawaii

Follow the ProgressHistory is Being Made

October 2011 – Adaptive Optics Keck Observatory Hawaii

Right, the shining dust and gas cloud around the star LkCa 15. Far right, an expanded view of the central region, showing the forming planet and the position of the central star. Photograph: Kraus and Ireland

Right, a closer shot of LkCa 15 b. Photograph: Kraus and Ireland 2011

•Announce discovery of a new habitable planet, GJ 667Cc.• Orbiting a triple star system around GJ667C•Its position with respect to the star could allow for liquid water

February 2012 – European Southern Observatory, Keck Observatory, Carnegie Planet finder Spectrograph

Follow the ProgressHistory is Being Made