Seen the new planet?

[Rhobes]

For you space junkies, the first ever photo of a planet outside our system, scroll down to first link in the discussion, great pic.......

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tm...confirmedpictureofaplanetbeyondthesolarsystem

 

[edesignuk]

Story dated April 1st. Pic dated 2004.

effing April freakin fools!

 

[clayj]

Are you sure this is an April Fool's joke? Seemed pretty legit to me... of course, the planet in question is twice the size of Jupiter and, given the right conditions, could become a star itself.

 

[edesignuk]

Are you sure this is an April Fool's joke? Seemed pretty legit to me... of course, the planet in question is twice the size of Jupiter and, given the right conditions, could become a star itself.

I'm not 100% sure (that's why the thread is still even here ), just seems quite amazing that such a rare thing would just happen to have been reported on on April 1st, don't you think?

 

[clayj]

I'm not 100% sure (that's why the thread is still even here ), just seems quite amazing that such a rare thing would just happen to have been reported on on April 1st, don't you think?

If they'd reported finding an Earthlike planet (in terms of size, not atmospheric composition), then I'd be skeptical. But it was just a matter of time before optics got good enough to resolve the disks of distant stars and planets (even if they are GIANT).

 

[jayscheuerle]

Good science would entail not releasing the discovery until it was thoroughly reviewed and then duplicated by other astronomers.

 

[hvfsl]

I heard about this a few weeks back, I am pretty sure it is real.

 

[minesgeek]

umm...looks a little too close to the star. might get burned up or something...

 

[clayj]

umm...looks a little too close to the star. might get burned up or something...

They said it's 100 AU from the star to the planet... the distance from the Sun to the Earth is 1 AU (8 light-minutes), so the planet is roughly 13 light-hours away from its primary star. Quite a big distance... Pluto's maximum distance from our Sun is not quite 50 AU.

 

[WildCowboy]

And then there's NASA's astronomy picture of the day from yesterday:
http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap050401.html

 

[wdlove]

There are bound to be other planets. So there is not reason not to believe, until the story is proven otherwise. I also thought I heard something about this somewhere else recently.

 

[Lacero]

I highly doubt Yahoo would run an April Fool's joke. Some people (like me) get pissed off by fake news stories.

 

[PlaceofDis]

I highly doubt Yahoo would run an April Fool's joke. Some people (like me) get pissed off by fake news stories.

i would get pissed too, but its def. cool news that we are finally reaching out to these planets, even in this limited fashon.....

 

[Abstract]

Yes yes, we all understand that there are other planets out there that we haven't seen. And eventually, many will be found and reported. I don't think that is in dispute.

What IS in dispute is whether THIS particular event is real. Yes, the possibility of discovering other planets is not zero, but is this particular "discovery" a real discovery, or just a joke?