Tuesday, June 14, 2005
They Ought To Be Smarter Than This
Space.com reports the findings of an extra-solar solid planet in a star system about 15 light years away. That actually pretty cool.
See, here's the thing --we cannot actually see extra solar planets, they are too small. We find them by detecting rotational or translation perturbations due to gravitational effects in the stars they orbit. It's sort of like knowing there is a fat guy hiding in the room when all the donuts disappear. Anyway, it's an indirect detection method.
So why in the story above do they have a picture? Isn't that misleading.
See, here's the thing --we cannot actually see extra solar planets, they are too small. We find them by detecting rotational or translation perturbations due to gravitational effects in the stars they orbit. It's sort of like knowing there is a fat guy hiding in the room when all the donuts disappear. Anyway, it's an indirect detection method.
So why in the story above do they have a picture? Isn't that misleading.
