Sunday, January 11, 2015

Telescope Captures Stunning Images of Alien Planets and Young Star


The Gemini Planet Imager (GPI) has already found unexpected differences between two sister exoplanets and helped to characterize the ring of dust and rocky bodies surrounding a young star even though it hasn't been doing full science operations until this past November. GPI was able to identify differences in the light emitted by the two sister planets which is astonishing because both of the planets are similar in size and appear to be the same color although scientists believe that this is the case because their are differences in cloud cover between the two. GPI was built to characterize and find gas giants but it isn't able to identify small rock planets but scientist believe that the data they get from it might help to build future gear that will be able to do just that. It is amazing that we have come so far in such a short time when it concerns our knowledge of the cosmos it makes me giddy in anticipation to see what else is in store in the future.

http://www.space.com/28202-exoplanet-photos-gemini-planet-imager.html

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