Excellent Exoplanet Illustration

Drakkith

Direct imaging of planets, like we do with Jupiter, Saturn, etc currently, is out of the question at the moment. The size of the mirror you would need to be able to obtain the required magnification, light gathering, and resolution is...crazy huge. MUCH bigger than we could possibly launch into orbit. Ground telescopes would be limited horribly by atmospheric turbulence, and although we have adaptive optics, they don't approach the scale of this kind of telescope.

mheslep

Well that was my thought as well until I saw what's been done so far with imaging on ground based telescopes. I also read that, for instance, the spectral lines of photosynthetic chemicals are very distinctive.

mheslep

You missed the point of my first post, which was to question not whether this was possible now, but would it be possible even a century from now given the resolving power needed and the contrast problems. I originally thought no, given the 'shadow box' techniques in use for many of the detections. But some of imaging work done so far is impressive.

Drakkith

Probably about 1 pixel.

Drakkith

If that was your point then I'd say you need to clarify a little. Anyways, most of the "shadow box" techniques are designed to block the light from the star so that we can see the light reflected from the planets effectively without the star's light overwhelming the entire image.. This only requires enough resolving power to give good separation between the star and it's planets in the image, so it is far easier than trying to actually see the detail on any of the planets.

mheslep

Clearly Sun sized stars at 140 ly can be resolved better than 1 pixel by Keck.

Drakkith

I just did the math, and while I'm not sure I was 100% accurate, when my numbers give me about 30 millionths 300 millionths of an arcsecond (0.0003)for the angular diameter of the star, I feel confident enough to run with it. If you disagree then please, do the math, as I would like to know if I did it correctly.

phyzguy

NASA has a proposed mission, called TPF (Terrestrial Planet Finder) to image exoplanets. There are two main concepts, TPF-I, based on an interferometer, and TPF-C, based on a coronagraph. Here is a web site:

http://exep.jpl.nasa.gov/TPF/tpf_index.cfm

mfb

In the next years, I would expect many more planets by Kepler, with some contributions from other telescopes.
After that, Gaia is designed to detect some tens of thousands of exoplanets. The downside is that many of them will be hot Jupiters, as the large number mainly comes from the immense amount of observed stars. However, I think the number of known smaller planets will explode, too.
In 2020 +x years, new earth-bound telescopes (E-ELT, TMT, GMT) should be able to perform spectroscopy at earth-like planets (and others, too, of course). Some gas compositions could be a good indication of life. Apart from SETI (which requires aliens sending messages around), this will be the first time in human history where we have a realistic possibility to detect extraterrestrial life. And this is just ~15 years away!

Bobbywhy

‘Close encounter’ planets discovered by NASA’s Kepler Telescope

NASA’s Kepler space telescope has spotted two planets engaged in an odd dance with each other, say scientists, a finding that is a first for the U.S. space organization and astronomers everywhere.
The finding, which was first reported in the June 21st Science Express, notes the appearance of a pair of planets engaged in a tight orbit with one another. Kepler-36, which is located approximately 1200 light-years from Earth, has two planets with vastly different densities orbiting close to each other. Astronomers believe that Kepler-36c might appear more than twice the size of the moon in the night sky of Kepler-36b.
http://www.thebunsenburner.com/news/...ler-telescope/

Gliese123

That's art! (For me) ;)
Although it's wonderful that they've been able to detect those big gas giants. However I can't wait until they find exomoons and smaller bodies. Such as Earth in a bigger amount.