This is so awesome!

If you click on "More Photos" in the article under the artist's conception, you get a little slideshow of historical space photos leading up to a couple of the planet photos, at the end. This is amazing... to think, you're looking at another world, in another star system!

"Our Hubble observations were incredibly demanding. Fomalhaut b is 1 billion times fainter than the star. We began this program in 2001, and our persistence finally paid off,"

incredible work..what a sight

The more we find out about systems outside of our own; the more it makes me think that we are unlikely to discover life that we would recognisable as life by our own standards or a planet that would ever be habitable by humans in our current form.

It seems our sun and it's planets are relatively small in relation to the other observable bodies out there; demonstrated in the article that states that the planets are "7-10 times the mass of Jupiter".

In our own solar system; Jupiter has more mass than the rest of the planets put together so the Planets in the article are massive in comparison to our own solar system standards.

This particular star; HR8799 is 1.5 times the mass of our sun making it again relatively small to the majority of observed stars ; some which are estimated to be upto 1000 times the mass of the Sun so it would be a fair assumption that the planets would need to be on similar scale to exisit in a conventional gravitational orbit....


Assuming known elementary particles exisit on these discovered stars and that these particles remain the same size throughout the Universe; the gravitational forces exerted by the planets would mean the life forms would probably be larger by multiple factors which in turn means they would need an overly complex respiratory system to process the oxygen/other particle to stay alive as the elementary particles would be tiny in comparison to the life forms they would support.


Lots of assumptions I know but I think it's likely that if life did exist ; it would be giant by our standards or unrecogniseable as they wouldnt require elemtary particles to exisit....

Any thoughts on this???

I hope no one takes this the wrong way but I have a question.

Why am I not impressed with this?
Everyone would say “No one can answer that but you.” That’s true but still its just like so what?
I mean ok they have found 326 planets, so what are they going to do about it?

The best they can hope for is an image that looks worse than the worst UFO photo you have ever seen, or an artists rendition.
No one anytime soon is going to do anything worthwhile in regards to these planets IMO.

I am trying to get excited about it and indeed I find it interesting and fun, but at the same time I realize my reasoning for such emotions is misplaced. Because when I see it I think to myself; “WOW I wonder how many planets are out there and how many may support life.” and “When will we be able to see more and possibly explore them?”

Then reality SLAPS me in the face and I realize; oh nothing is going to be done anytime soon to investigate such wonders.

Other worlds and possibly civilizations cant make people come together to work for an awesome goal.

No , nope not us we will just pittle around talking a whole lot of (S#@T) about what our plans are and maybe if we are lucky someone 500 years from now will point out those very same planets we are seeing today. Big Deal.

Uhhg.. I feel like the guy crashing a party here. I don’t mean to sound like “that Guy” but I don’t know, like I said I’m trying to be positive. Please don’t attack me I’m only stating my opinion and if someone can slap me around a little and make me see the grandeur of this find I’ll thank them.

Originally posted by snowen20
make me see the grandeur of this find I’ll thank them.

the images take us further than we've ever been.think of hillary when he scrambled the last few steps,gathered himself,then gazed at the spectacle before him..it's cool to see things that haven't been seen before

While this is a major find, don't get your hopes up yet. Quick and dirty calculations here, if we traveled at the same rate it took us to get to the moon, we could be on the surface of formalhut b in about 4 million years. And to those complaining about the quality of the images, think about this: The planet they have found is approximately 3 times the size of jupiter in mass. Jupiter is approx 500 million miles from the earth. Formalhut B is 25 lightyears away.

Not the most detailed image, but it is quite beautiful. I really do feel privileged to be alive right now. It's as if my imagination, all this stuff I've contemplated since childhood, is manifesting in reality. Extra-solar planets were detected a while ago, but we actually have pictures now. Amazing.

Yeah I agree it will benefit us for years to come but I still cant get passed the lack of payoff.

It’s kind of like when your 13 and find your dad’s naughty magazine box in his closet; I mean sure ,you felt like you just found a treasure chest, but then at the same time you were just frustrating yourself.

I dont want to see gasballs I want to go to planets.
I have a novel Idea.
Why dont we work on going there instead of treating the universe like a "DONT FEED THE ANIMALS" wildlife park?

Is this the News NASA is meant to be sharing with us today????


Yet again Dissapointment

Snowne20

The reason we aren't going to any of these distant planets is a simple matter of distance. For example the one being referenced here is approx 25 light years away. We aren't talking a quick jaunt to the moon and back. Lets talk realistically here.

Ian,

Yes this is the news NASA released yesterday that was supposed to be released today. I happened to be home and caught the webcast of the press conference

Thanks for correcting me about the NASA thing, sorry about that.

By the way I understand the gravity of the situation in regards to traveling these vast distances.

What I’m getting at is the lack of a realist technology that at least gives greater insight into just what we are seeing.

Please don’t get me wrong, I do indeed find this interesting and looking at those blurry grainy photos and seeing those planets around a distant star makes me feel like I’m part of something bigger.
I like that.

IMHO I feel that people having found such wonders waiting for us would focus efforts and knowledge foremost on the target. It just seems like they don’t care about it as much as I figured they would.

When they find a sister planet to earth then I will really be impressed, hell I’ll even take a baron rock earth size.

Problem is it seems like they cant find it out there.
I know it exists but I’m just frisky to see it.

Now I’m about to perform a miracle…Watch This.

I don’t want to admire these discoveries to much because I’m disappointed that Ill never see them in person in my life time.

WOW.. After all these posts and ridiculous pseudo diatribe I summed it up in that one sentence.