Added on Aug 15, 2010

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Please join us on Facebook for the latest science news and videos: tinyurl.com Hubble's Universe Unfiltered (Episode 7): Eye Spy A Planet (Part 2/2) - Extrasolar Planets. Up until the 1990s, we only knew of the planets in our own solar system. Since then, we have discovered over 300 planets orbiting other stars (extrasolar planets, exoplanets). However, most of these planets were found when scientists observed the effect of the planet's gravity upon their host stars. Astronomers could not show the world what we wanted most: a visible light picture of a planet around a star like the Sun. That situation changed in November 2008 with a discovery by the Hubble Space Telescope. Join us for the story that begins a new era in our knowledge of planetary systems. --- Please subscribe to Science & Reason: • www.youtube.com • www.youtube.com • www.youtube.com • www.youtube.com --- Hubble press release: Hubble Directly Observes Planet Orbiting Fomalhaut hubblesite.org --- Notes - Note that Hubble's discovery of Fomalhaut b is billed as the "first visible-light snapshot of a planet orbiting another star." It is important to note that the first direct detection of a planet will likely turn out to be the planet known as 2M1207 b. However, the host, 2M1207, is not a full-fledged star, but a brown dwarf (see below). In addition, pictures of three planets around HR 8799, released the same day as the Fomalhaut discovery, were taken in the infrared. - Let me clarify about 2M1207. It has less ...

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Tags: Tech  extrasolar  planets  exoplanets  universe  hubble  space  telescopes