Will We Soon See Our First Extrasolar planet?

[qso1]

That oughta be good. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><strong>My borrowed quote for the time being:</strong></p><p><em>There are three kinds of people in life. Those who make it happen, those who watch it happen...and those who do not know what happened.</em></p> </div>

 

[alokmohan]

Scientists have discovered a huge belt of warm dust — enough to build a Mars-size planet or larger — swirling around a distant star that is just slightly more massive than our Sun. The dust belt, which they suspect is clumping together into planets, is located in the middle of the system's terrestrial habitable zone. This is the region around a star where liquid water could exist on any rocky planets that might form. Earth is located in the middle of our sun's terrestrial habitable zone. <br /><br />At approximately 10 million years old, the star is also at just the right age for forming rocky planets. <br /><br />"The timing for this system to be building an Earth is very good," says Dr. Carey Lisse, of the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory. "If the system was too young, its planet-forming disk would be full of gas, and it would be making gas-giant planets like Jupiter instead. If the system was too old, then dust aggregation or clumping would have already occurred and all the system's rocky planets would have already formed." <br /><br />According to Lisse, the conditions for forming an Earth-like planet are more than just being in the right place at the right time and around the right star — it's also about the right mix of dusty materials. <br /><br />Using Spitzer's infrared spectrometer instrument, he determined that the material in HD 113866 is more processed than the snowball-like stuff that makes up infant solar systems and comets, which are considered cosmic "refrigerators" because they contain pristine ingredients from the early solar system. However, it is also not as processed as the stuff found in mature planets and the largest asteroids. This means the dust belt must be in a transitional phase, when rocky planets are just beginning to form.<br /><br />How do scientists know the material is more processed than that of comets? From missions like NASA's Deep Impact — in which an 820-pound impactor spacecraft collided with comet Tempel 1 â

 

[brellis]

NASA Article on the Lyot system<br /><font color="orange"> Ben Oppenheimer calls starlight "the bane of planet hunting."<br /><br />Image showing the effect of the Lyot coronagraph. Although more than 250 planets are known to orbit other stars, so far no one has been able to get a good look at any of them. That's largely because a star's glare is millions of times brighter than a planet, so trying to see a planet next to a star is akin to trying to spot a firefly next to a spotlight, from thousands of miles away. But it's a problem Oppenheimer and his colleagues at the American Museum of Natural History in New York hope to solve with a new instrument called the Lyot Project.<br /><br /><b>"I think we are very close to having a picture of an exoplanet - maybe even within two years ... it's a race,"</b> he said.<br /><br />At the heart of the project is an advanced coronagraph, a type of instrument that can get better information about exoplanets by directly blocking the light from the stars they orbit - similar to shielding your eyes from the sun on a bright day. "It's like an artificial eclipse," Oppenheimer said. The hope is that the instrument eventually will be able to block out enough of a star's light that astronomers can snap pictures of exoplanets - and maybe even discover another Earthlike world. </font>/safety_wrapper> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><font size="2" color="#ff0000"><em><strong>I'm a recovering optimist - things could be better.</strong></em></font> </p> </div>

 

[alokmohan]

More than 260 planets have already been discovered orbiting other stars, and new ones are found almost every month. Having trouble keeping track? Help is on the way. http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewpr.nl.html?pid=24145<br /><br />NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., has revamped its award-winning PlanetQuest website with improved tools to help users stay on top of the latest discoveries, at http://planetquest.jpl.nasa.gov . <br /><br />PlanetQuest 2.0 features include: <br /><br />

 

[alokmohan]

But what you mean by see?

 

[brellis]

<font color="yellow">But what you mean by see?</font><br />To capture an image of an extrasolar planet by the light it reflects from its star. Epsilon Eridani b is approaching a good angle for that - it is on the far side of its star, about to go behind it. I think several teams are trying to get this shot right now. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><font size="2" color="#ff0000"><em><strong>I'm a recovering optimist - things could be better.</strong></em></font> </p> </div>

 

[alokmohan]

How many actually sen by this process?

 

[brellis]

<font color="yellow">How many actually sen by this process?</font><br />None yet. The Hubble Space Telescope will observe Epsi Eri in a few weeks - that may be the first time it happens!<br /><br />I'm eagerly awaiting the HST weekly schedule for the last week of the year. <img src="/images/icons/smile.gif" /> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><font size="2" color="#ff0000"><em><strong>I'm a recovering optimist - things could be better.</strong></em></font> </p> </div>

 

[jetlack]

Is not COROT a dud mission?<br /><br />Ive noticed there is no news from COROT since they studied one exoplanet quite a few months ago. COROT has been in space for a year now and its hard to find a trace of any significant science achieved for this project.<br /><br />Maybe im looking in the wrong places but is not the lack of data suspicious?

 

[MeteorWayne]

Welcome to Space.com!<br /><br />Not necessarily.<br />We are spoiled by NASA, who distributes information almost as soon as it comes in.<br /><br />ESA, owner of COROT takes a much different approach.<br />The information comes out in dribs and drabs, after a long delay.<br /><br />For example, they just released images of exposed water ice on Mars (a pretty exciting result), that were taken on Feb 2, 2005!! <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><font color="#000080"><em><font color="#000000">But the Krell forgot one thing John. Monsters. Monsters from the Id.</font></em> </font></p><p><font color="#000080">I really, really, really, really miss the "first unread post" function</font><font color="#000080"> </font></p> </div>

 

[jetlack]

<br />Hi MeteorWayne<br /><br />Thanks for the welcome.<br /><br />Thats an interesting difference in approach to the release of scientific data. <br /><br />I was starting to wonder if there is some sort of malfunction on COROT which they didnt want to publicise.<br /><br />Well hopefully they will start being a bit more informative since as with NASA and the US taxpayer, we fund ESA.<br /><br />

 

[3488]

Welcome to SDC Jetlack.<br /><br />Where are you from??<br /><br />I too am from Europe, I'm British.<br /><br />Andrew Brown. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><font color="#000080">"I suddenly noticed an anomaly to the left of Io, just off the rim of that world. It was extremely large with respect to the overall size of Io and crescent shaped. It seemed unbelievable that something that big had not been visible before".</font> <em><strong><font color="#000000">Linda Morabito </font></strong><font color="#800000">on discovering that the Jupiter moon Io was volcanically active. Friday 9th March 1979.</font></em></p><p><font size="1" color="#000080">http://www.launchphotography.com/</font><br /><br /><font size="1" color="#000080">http://anthmartian.googlepages.com/thisislandearth</font></p><p><font size="1" color="#000080">http://web.me.com/meridianijournal</font></p> </div>

 

[brellis]

COROT is planning an announcement - today? I forget, but really soon here. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><font size="2" color="#ff0000"><em><strong>I'm a recovering optimist - things could be better.</strong></em></font> </p> </div>

 

[qso1]

Good link and article, thanks Alokmohan. Now we just need to be able to find a system similar enough to ours in which an earthlike world already exists so we can image it once we get the technology to do that.<br /><br />Sounds easy, but is actually quite difficult. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><strong>My borrowed quote for the time being:</strong></p><p><em>There are three kinds of people in life. Those who make it happen, those who watch it happen...and those who do not know what happened.</em></p> </div>

 

[jetlack]

Hi Andrew<br /><br />Thanks for the welcome. Im from UK also, though partly Canadian <br /><br />