Alien planets seen for the first time.

[The stig]

12:14pm UK, Friday November 14, 2008
Scientists have spotted planets circling other stars with their own eyes for the first time.




Artist's impression of a planet orbiting the star Fomalhaut


The discovery has been hailed as a step on the road to finding other worlds that can support life - and perhaps even alien life itself.
Astronomers have pinpointed so-called exoplanets, or worlds orbiting suns other than our own, before.
But they have always had to rely on deductions made after measuring changes in gravity or light that give the exoplanets' locations away.
Now, the National Research Council's Herzberg Institute of Astrophysics in Victoria, Canada, has spotted three objects near a star 128 light years away, according to the journal Science.

Planets In Other Solar Systems Seen With Visible Light For The First Time Ever | World News | Sky News

Lol, well this is good, until science bites us in the ass, again...

[Ericgamer1]

Well, there have been a lot of planets in other solar systems found, and have been known for a long time. Before, they only knew of the planets because they were so big, and so close to their star that the star it's self would wobble. I guess actually seeing what one of these looks like it is pretty cool, but it'd still probably be difficult to see any planets other than gas giants.

[San Goku]

I don't want to see an artist imprssion on how he/she thinks it looks, fuck that, give me a real digital image.

[krozar]

Virtually all astronomy images are shopped anyways. All those colorful nebulae and whatnot are all false colored. The raw images tend to be more blurry and very washed out. But yeah seeing something would be nice, but I imagine it would be very unimpressive looking. Such as two separate hi-res images with the two having a pixel difference between them.

[Gambler]

Originally Posted by From the article...

NASAs Hubble Space Telescope has taken the first visible-light snapshot of a planet circling another star in this image released by NASA November 13, 2008. Estimated to be no more than three times Jupiters mass, the planet, called Fomalhaut b, orbits the bright southern star Fomalhaut, located 25 light-years away in the constellation Piscis Australis, or the ”Southern Fish.” Fomalhaut has been a candidate for planet hunting ever since an excess of dust was discovered around the star in the early 1980s by NASAs Infrared Astronomy Satellite, IRAS. REUTERS

One planet to rule them all?

[Keerua]

Yeah they just add color according to how strong the incoming radiation from that area is, no telescope can get a visual that good, one less thing I am able to do :/

[krozar]

Yeah it gets expensive. Need at least $3000 optics, need a good tracking mount that can hold exact loc for hours, a very dark place, and a high resolution CCD. Connect it all to a laptop with some software and then you can get some nice stuff.

Shop it and and take it to a photo lab that can make some nice big prints for you.

Or you can use the new Google Earth with the star feature, click around and it will give icons that pop up nice pics. But there's got to be something cool about saying that you did that when you finally get a nice beautiful print.

Shopping it shouldn't be that hard. You should know how it should look if you're a good astronomer. An astronomy prof I had said it was his favorite part. I am a bit too hyper for astronomy though. That's something you have to have lots and lots of patience. Unless you are an astrophysicist. Then it becomes more like Political Science, but without the crazy human condition involved to make things complicated as fuck. Just nice friendly numbers.


OT:

Natural Sciences: 2 + 2 = 4
Social Sciences: 2 + 2 = banana

so now we know 2+2 is a banana, so if we had the former findings of:
7+4 = vanilla ice cream;
3 + 2 = strawberries;
4 + 1 = caramel (hah, bet you thought it was strawberries);
8 + 2 = pineapple;
and 10 + 3 = something we don't know but we theorize that it's there.

From that we get a banana split as concluded by 4 of 6 research sources. But some of the academic literature suggests that this only exists in 3 counties in Louisiana and even then they say they prefer coconut shavings which they never get but other sources state that if given sprinkles, they will dislike it because they only think that they want coconut shavings. This is referred to by Thomas, Jensen, and Sukakok as the cottage cheese effect.

I kinda wish I had a different major sometimes LOL.

[Keerua]

I am majoring in astrophysics, my freshman year only but my professor keeps telling us that we can kiss nice and neat analytical solutions goodbye, so nice numbers for us ;( just approximations.

[Yedi]

I find it funny that they say we "see" a new planet when we are only "noticing" it. The thing they probably did with this finding was to measure the planets atmosphere (which is quite interesting on how they do but that is another story).

I loved Krozars comment btw.

[PC Chris]

Originally Posted by krozar

OT:

Natural Sciences: 2 + 2 = 4
Social Sciences: 2 + 2 = banana

so now we know 2+2 is a banana, so if we had the former findings of:
7+4 = vanilla ice cream;
3 + 2 = strawberries;
4 + 1 = caramel (hah, bet you thought it was strawberries);
8 + 2 = pineapple;
and 10 + 3 = something we don't know but we theorize that it's there.

From that we get a banana split as concluded by 4 of 6 research sources. But some of the academic literature suggests that this only exists in 3 counties in Louisiana and even then they say they prefer coconut shavings which they never get but other sources state that if given sprinkles, they will dislike it because they only think that they want coconut shavings. This is referred to by Thomas, Jensen, and Sukakok as the cottage cheese effect.

I kinda wish I had a different major sometimes LOL.

This is made of so much win.

So much truth too. =\ I wish I went into hard science.

[Ice(v)an]

I think it's time we start building a hyperdrive.

[krozar]

BTW where is the planet in the pic? Is it the object in the bottom left? IR telescopes are awesome. If that is the planet (I don't know the scale of stuff but judging by the star there, it must be large) then that's an impressive pic.

Originally Posted by Keerua

I am majoring in astrophysics, my freshman year only but my professor keeps telling us that we can kiss nice and neat analytical solutions goodbye, so nice numbers for us ;( just approximations.

I loved astrophysics. Yeah, so many variables involved that you're only going to be doing approximations. They're not putting you in charge of plotting space craft just yet.

Physics was fun. Loved it. But my soul is in Poli Sci.

[X2thaU]

architecture is better bro.

But seriously, if i knew that my major was just design school with a better reputation and professors i would've majored in fiance/pre-med. Fuck wasted my asian genes

[Cane_The9lives]

Originally Posted by Ice(v)an

I think it's time we start building a hyperdrive.

Your great great great grandchildrens.. grandchildren wont see that in their lifetime.

The only feasible exploration that could be done within the a few hundred years would be exploring our planetary solar system....as far as actually leaving the solar system....impossible, considering how far the closest planet to earth is.

Probes are another story, sattelite probes will go farther into space than any human being will ever venture.

[San Goku]

Originally Posted by krozar

Virtually all astronomy images are shopped anyways. All those colorful nebulae and whatnot are all false colored. The raw images tend to be more blurry and very washed out. But yeah seeing something would be nice, but I imagine it would be very unimpressive looking. Such as two separate hi-res images with the two having a pixel difference between them.

Nah, theres a big difference with that, they can tell exactly what color with variations in shades and other stuff, and they put it in after. Alot different then, hmmm this is what my immagination is telling me and i'm gonna draw it to make most ppl that wont give it a second glance think its real.

[krozar]

Originally Posted by X2thaU

architecture is better bro.

But seriously, if i knew that my major was just design school with a better reputation and professors i would've majored in fiance/pre-med. Fuck wasted my asian genes

Maybe you can find a focus item such as a necklace or something which gives you more skill points after each level-up. That may be able to substitute for your fuck up on apportioning your racial bonus. Also, you probably also put too many initial points in benching.

Otherwise you need to re-roll another character. Often it leads to frustrating decades of fail until you get the right one. 3 times in a row my char ended up born in Africa with the AIDS. Even with this one I still never get fucking laid.

The balancing is all screwed up. The developer has been on a long hiatus. The last time he was around, he spawned as a burning bush on top of a mountain for some special epic GM quest. I missed it. I had to work that day =( The winner got a staff with some mad stats and a movie made after him. He was also mentioned in the old strategy guide.

Originally Posted by San Goku

Nah, theres a big difference with that, they can tell exactly what color with variations in shades and other stuff, and they put it in after. Alot different then, hmmm this is what my immagination is telling me and i'm gonna draw it to make most ppl that wont give it a second glance think its real.

Of course it's representative of the actual colors. That's for the the visible light spectrum anyways. But still it has to be shooped in there. Was kind a shitty comparison to an artist rendering anyways. But the artist doesn't just paint in arbitrary stuff anyways.

[Twilex]

Originally Posted by San Goku

I don't want to see an artist imprssion on how he/she thinks it looks, fuck that, give me a real digital image.

I completely agree with you. We don't need fake/possible images. We want the real stuff

[krozar]

The rendering isn't very Mordor but it's nice! People want that kind of thing. Just like Fox News. Rendering of reality.