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Do both these planets just happen to be passing in front of the star then, because they would typically be a mile or so outside the image at that scale wouldn't
by hanoz 6y ago
Do both these planets just happen to be passing in front of the star then, because they would typically be a mile or so outside the image at that scale wouldn't they?
- Roboprog 6y agoNo, they are imaged in reflected light, rather than a transit (silhouette). The parent star is masked off, and I’m pretty sure it’s an image generated from multiple telescopes, “interferometry”, as others have mentioned.
- SiempreViernes 6y agoNo, this was actually shot with SPHERE, which is a single telescope instrument: https://www.eso.org/public/teles-instr/paranal-observatory/vlt/vlt-instr/sphere/ https://www.eso.org/public/teles-instr/paranal-observatory/v...
- Roboprog 6y agoInteresting. It’s attached to one of the VLTs https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Very_Large_Telescope https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Very_Large_Telescope Unclear if they use the auxiliaries as part of the process.
- hanoz 6y agoIndeed I should have asked if both planets just happened to be passing behind the star? Alternatively, have they just been superimposed beside the star at arbitrary positions? I'm still none the wiser.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- ilyagr 6y agoThat star system is young, and the planets are therefore hot enough to produce their own infrared light. That light is what the telescope saw. So, there was no need for the planets to pass in front of the star to be detected. In fact, if you click on the picture in the article, you see two planets and the star quite a distance from each other. Those planets are much further from their star than any of the (known) planets in our own solar system.