I can't believe...

[Chris Strellis]

Hi Tony,

> As an aside, three days ago, the first ever *images* of planets
outside
> our
> solar system were announced. I think about the signal processing, the
> enthusiasm, and the philosophical implications of this.
> 
> I mean, it's a *picture* right!? Of *THREE* planets, not in our solar
> system.

Thread hijacking!

Well yes absolutely fantastic news.  Some amazing interferometery and
clever processing to actually resolve a star to a disc and then it's
planets to a disc (instead of a point source!).

The main feature of this optical picture is that the planets are
orbiting a STAR.  The previous 300 or so exoplanets were orbiting brown
dwarfs or "star-like" i.e not "proper" suns.

This is the first view of planets around sun-like stars, a proper
exo-solarsystem.

http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2008/11/13/huge-exoplanet
-news-items-pictures/

But don't go thinking about extra terrestrials now....

Cheers

Chris