Three exoplanets directly imaged.

[GGTharos]

This is a pretty big advance in astronomical technology, thanks to Adaptive and Active Optics.

 

Here's the article:

 

http://www.slate.com/blogs/bad_astronomy/2013/12/03/exoplanets_three_directy_imaged_planets_added_to_list.html

[KaspeR32]

I'm not sure if you live in the states or not, but Science Friday on NPR had a great interview with Sara Seager not too long ago, about the future of exoplanet searching.

 

http://www.sciencefriday.com/segment/11/15/2013/searching-for-earth-2-0.html

 

Check it out!

[NoJoe]

It's amazing to me what's going on these days in astro science. It's like sci-fi, but real! First we have new pictures every day from the surface of Mars via Curiousity, now direct images of extrasolar planets. Plus over the last week we got to watch a comet evaporate as it passed close to the sun, and within the next year we should be seeing detailed images of Pluto and Charon...!

 

It's a good time to be alive! :smartass:

 

--NoJoe

[GGTharos]

Some of this stuff is just thanks to the internet - ISON imagery for example is taken by 1980's sattelite - you can even tell the CCD doesn't have modern anti-blooming technology (although sometimes that's anathema in astro).

[GGTharos]

I don't, but I'll see if I can catch it anyway, she probably has the interview on youtube I bet :)

 

I'm not sure if you live in the states or not, but Science Friday on NPR had a great interview with Sara Seager not too long ago, about the future of exoplanet searching.

 

http://www.sciencefriday.com/segment/11/15/2013/searching-for-earth-2-0.html

 

Check it out!

[Rangi]

It's amazing to me what's going on these days in astro science. It's like sci-fi, but real! First we have new pictures every day from the surface of Mars via Curiousity, now direct images of extrasolar planets. Plus over the last week we got to watch a comet evaporate as it passed close to the sun, and within the next year we should be seeing detailed images of Pluto and Charon...!

 

It's a good time to be alive! :smartass:

 

--NoJoe

 

 

Yes and imagine how much more good stuff we could do if NASA, Roscosmos and others would stop wasting money on sending people into orbit.

[NoJoe]

Yes and imagine how much more good stuff we could do if NASA, Roscosmos and others would stop wasting money on sending people into orbit.

 

Heh, I don't know, I think human spaceflight is the most interesting part. After all, part of the point of looking for extrasolar planets today is to possibly move there in a few centuries. It's kinda what we humans do. Always climbing mountains just because we can.

 

However with that said I actually agree. I'd like to see the commercial spaceflight companies take up the torch of human spaceflight, while NASA/Ruscosmos/ESA continue running the robotic science missions that they're good at. I'd rather have the governments doing the science.

 

--NoJoe