Gah! Where Have I Been? Dreaming Of Somewhere Else, Quite Obviously

I just couldn't stay away. Through a month of laptop distress and several months of my brain overflowing with the histology of the diencephelon, photophosphorylation of ADP, and genetic drift of Drosophila melanogaster, I still can't stay away when NASA publishes actual photographs of the first extra-solar planet.

For about 18 years there have been discoveries of new planets not of our solar system, almost 15 per year, on average; over 300 to date. But they have always been deduced by indirect means. Most often, those means being the gravitational "jiggle" planets play on their star as they orbit.

Now, however, NASA has published photographic proof of these mysterious little (well, really quite huge) guys. Obviously the picture is not pixleated to NASA's standards but... you understand.

This is the star Fomalhut in the constellation Piscis Austrinus, of the southern sky. It is surround by a disk of red dust. The planet in question is Fomalhut b, outlined in the small box (you really can not see it a this resolution. It's estimated to be about (or up to) three times the mass of Jupiter and taking somewhere in the neighborhood of 822 years to orbit it's star.

Anyway, very cool news. I can't wait for the day when our technology will be enough to capture an image of an earthlike planet. It's bound to happen sooner or later. Then we will have a target to shoot for!

"...our most basic common link, is that we all inhabit this small planet, we all breathe the same air, we all cherish our children's futures, and we are all mortal. " - John F. Kennedy (1917-1963)