A new planet?, =X Options

[EmmalieV]

Last year astronomers had photographed a red speck orbiting a distant brown dwarf –or a failed star-outside the solar system. It was debated whether it was indeed a new planet or just another failed star. Now it is beyond doubt. With the help of new clearer images it has now been confirmed to be a giant planet orbiting the star. New images taken by the European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope in northern Chile conclude that the first planet found outside the solar system is about 5 times the size of Jupiter.
The planet, which is situated in the Hydra constellation, is nearly 230 light years from the earth, and is orbiting the failed star at a distance of about 5 billion miles that is approximately twice the distance from which Neptune orbits about the sun. Spectroscopic measurements suggests the presence of water vapor in its atmosphere leading to the belief that it is cold like a planet rather than hot like a star. The head of the observatory team Gael Chauvin, an astronomer at the European Southern Observatory, said, "Our new images show convincingly that this really is a planet, the first planet that has ever been imaged outside of our solar system". Another member Benjamin Zuckerman, who is the professor of physics and astronomy at UCLA said, “I’m more than 99 percent confident.

This is also the first time that a planet outside of our solar system has been detected far from a star or brown dwarf -- nearly twice as far as the distance between Neptune and the sun."
Gael Chauvin and his colleagues write in the paper, “This discovery offers new perspectives for our understanding of chemical and physical properties of planetary mass objects as well as their mechanisms of formation."

This new finding has been approved to be published in the future issues of Astronomy and Astrophysics, an astronomy journal.

What do you think about that.

[gelionie]

Wow that is so amazing.
I wonder what the planet is going to be named.

We are going to discover more and more planets in the future... hopefully.

[misoshiru]

oh wow. that's so cool. i've always loved astronomy. it'd be really interesting if it was a planet with lifeforms on it. haha.

[*paul murphy*]

What's all the hype? There are billions of undiscovered planets, it's about time we discovered sum. Grab a microscope and get looking

[xquizit]

Haha, oh shit. I just saw that I put Astrology instead of Astronomy. *smacks forehead* D'oh.

[Tung]

i'm always into space things. so i found that article very amusing to read lol.

[PinoyOtaku]

What's all the hype?

Supposedly this is the first extra-solar planet that we ever took a picture of. We found all the other extra-solars through ways like the wobble and elliptical techniques.

Here's the photo of the planet itself:

[Soleil]

Hmm sorry but thats old news.

[HelloSunshine]

That's really nifty. I wonder what they'll call it.

[kyuubi319]

Supposedly this is the first extra-solar planet that we ever took a picture of. We found all the other extra-solars through ways like the wobble and elliptical techniques.

Here's the photo of the planet itself:

That is what all the hype is about. Quite interesting, in my opinion.

[__PASS10NAT3]

ohh.. cool~

[krispy_kreme333]

Wow, that's really interesting. These stuff about the solar system has always caught my interest.

I've never heard of a brown dwarf. But that's real cool. Another new discovery. Yay! The world is being advanced in technology.

a brown dwarf is a type of star.

[jue]

a new planeet!!!!

[Options]

I would name the new planet johny. johny twinkle.

[angel-roh]

How exciting! I've always been fascinated by Astronomy and the contents of our universe outside our own galaxy. Very cool.

Same here, I was always fascinated by Astronomy and the contents of our universe outside our own galaxy. I actually wanted to study Astronomy when I grow up. But you have to be smart on math and science and I'm not really smart at that stuff. After seeing so many stars outside of my apartment. It got me thinking that I should become an Astronomy. I heard that all you do is watch the universe 24/7 and study them. Also calculate lots of stuff to solve problems. And they don't have presentations a lot unless they found something new or something happened in the universe.

Anyways that's cool that they think they found a new planet. I mean having a new planet is a cool! But I got confused with some part that says like. It looked like stars? So it's front of Neptune? So that means the new planet is warm and hot? Interesting though. Thanks for sharing. Wow, I should go to http://www.space.com more... I've been lagging because I had other stuff to do.