First 'Planet' Outside Solar System Observered

[wires]

http://aolsvc.news.aol.com/news/article.adp?id=20050430110109990004&ncid=NWS00010000000001

[Blaze]

Cool! :)

[Sidoh]

I find it odd that it's the acclaimed first observed (especially since I thought they were trying to rapidly analyze planets outside our solar system to find one similar to Earth), but I don't know enough in this area to argue against it. :)

Sounds neat! 5x the size of Jupiter, eh? I could probably still bench it. :)

[RoMi]

I thought a few years ago they found another solar system of 3, but cool.

[wires]

I thought a few years ago they found another solar system of 3, but cool.

I guess they found another solar system but didn't observe any the planets! :P

[iago]

They can "see" planets orbitting distant stars by the effect they have on the light (smearing it) and on the star's orbit (wobbling), but perhaps this was the first one directly observed?  I don't know, I didn't read the article.

[Sidoh]

They can "see" planets orbitting distant stars by the effect they have on the light (smearing it) and on the star's orbit (wobbling), but perhaps this was the first one directly observed?  I don't know, I didn't read the article.

Speaking of object's effects on light (and also distantly related to this topic), I went to an dark/anti-matter/energy lecture in Aspen, CO a few months back. The presentor was the leading scientist in that area. That is one crazy topic. He was showing a bunch of different slides that suggested/proved that dark matter existed. It was one star that appeared multiple times in a photograph because of the gravitational pull of dark matter on the light from the star.

If any of you ever get a chance to go to a lecture on anything like that, I highly recommend going. Very interesting stuff. Definitely gives you something to think about. :P

[RoMi]

Nova did a string theory show a few months back, that one was pretty good too.

[Sidoh]

Nova did a string theory show a few months back, that one was pretty good too.

They discussed the string theory at that lecture too. It was overall a very informative event. However, there was lots of stuff they covered that no one understood (including themselves).

[Towelie]

I find it odd that it's the acclaimed first observed (especially since I thought they were trying to rapidly analyze planets outside our solar system to find one similar to Earth), but I don't know enough in this area to argue against it. :)

Sounds neat! 5x the size of Jupiter, eh? I could probably still bench it. :)

Earlier the only way they "observed" them wasnt directly, only the signs of a blinking star or a wobling star.

[Warrior]

IIRC there had been similiar sighting but none confirmed, this one had some gravitational pull or something because it was pulling some debris around it. They found out the mass by the light on it or something, just skimmed over it.

[ZeroX]

I always wonderd about outside solar systems. I think it would be so cool if we could move to a new planet instead of earth.

[Sidoh]

I always wonderd about outside solar systems. I think it would be so cool if we could move to a new planet instead of earth.

Yeah, it'd be nice as this planet's resources aren't going to last much longer (seeing as the whole US economy is built on petrolium).

[CrAz3D]

If we decided to work on renewable diesel or hydrogen we could be better off.

[trust]

Nice, only 1.32266246 × 10^15 miles from Earth!