Tuesday 22 September 2015

Here's Your Clearest Look Yet At An Alien Planet In Motion

image credit Vimeo

That pixelated dot you see above may not seem like much, but it's a pretty big deal - it's your best look yet at an alien world. Scientists have used the Gemini Planet Imager to capture the movement of Beta Pictoris b, a gas giant traveling around a star 60 light years away.

That's no mean feat when the exoplanet is about a million times fainter than its host, requiring that the Imager block the star's light and compensate for the distortion of Earth's atmosphere.

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