A Breakthrough Way to See Distant Planets
Astronomers have created a one-of-a-kind image of a distant exoplanet by zeroing in on the molecules in its atmosphere.
MARINA KOREN
12:29 PM ET
On a cloudless night, stars provide a breathtaking view: hundreds, thousands, of milky-white specks, draped over the Earth like a sparkling quilt. But stars can be annoying for astronomers trying to observe distant planets. Because stars are so luminous, it’s extremely difficult for even the most powerful telescopes to make out the tiny planets around them, says Henriette Schwarz, an astronomer at Leiden Observatory in the Netherlands who studies planets outside of our solar system.
“Stars are millions to billions of times brighter than the planets that orbit them, and their bright glare completely outshines the faint light of these planets,” Schwarz says. Even the youngest planets, still glowing brightly from the heat of their formations, are millions of times fainter than their stars.
Since the discovery of the first planet outside of our solar system in the 1990s, astronomers have found thousands more “exoplanets” in the Milky Way, from gas giants the size of Jupiter to rocky planets 10 times the mass of Earth. They have been found through indirect means; telescopes detect an exoplanet by the effects the planet has on its parent star, like a faint dimming as it passes in front of the star, or the star’s slight wobble as the planet tugs on it. Only a handful of exoplanets have ever been observed directly. Stars are just too bright.
https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2018/07/exoplanet-atmosphere-imaging/564908/
That is so cool..................
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