APOD: TYC 8998-760-1: Multiple Planets a... (2020 Aug 18)

[BDanielMayfield]

Do we know the inclination of the system relative to ours? Are we looking at it roughly from a polar view of the star?

Yes. The article reporting this finding stated that this system is being seen from a nearly polar view .

[neufer]

I always find it tempting to imagine that images like these are actual planetary or stellar disks. How large would the telescope need to be to actually resolve a planetary disk, about three Jupiter radii, from a distance of 95 pc, in visible or IR, light.I know the math is there, I just don't know what it is

Comparison of SPHERE images of Betelgeuse taken in January 2019 and December 2019, showing the changes in brightness and shape.

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We are just starting to resolve stars like Betelgeuse.

Betelgeuse is 1,000 times larger than the Sun.

The Sun is 10 times larger than Jupiter.

Ergo: We are off by ~4 orders of magnitude.

[orin stepanek]

This is a fantastic image, which I think will be regarded as an historic accomplishment in astronomy. Way to go, ESO! Thanks for posting it. Also, there is so much good information in the linked articles, I hope I have enough time to go read them in the next few days. Thanks, RJN !

I'm always amused by the random links to cute cat pics, like the one on the word "hoped" in the sentence "As telescope and technology improve over the next decade, it is hoped that planets more closely resembling our Earth will be directly imaged."

I hope James Webb can give us that!

[TheOtherBruce]

The whole subject of sub stellar mass objects is extremely interesting to me. Heck, it's ALL interesting: the range of planet-like objects, the range of star-like objects, and stellar evolution. Hmm - you never hear much about planetary evolution. Why not? I guess because we only have 8 or so examples to study, and those are all "stuck" in time at about 4.5 billion years old.

It's not just the fixed age, it's the limited variety of planet types. For a Sun-like star, the two giant planets featured in this APOD possibly are way out in the local Kuiper Belt. Around other stars, there are sun-skimmers like the Hot Jupiters. We don't have either of those in our Solar System — probably a good thing, as a Hot Jupiter spiralling in towards its final orbit well inside a Mercury-equivalent distance would likely disrupt the formation of rocky inner planets, such as <points down> this one. I wouldn't be surprised if there were even weirder planet types lurking out there that we haven't discovered — or even theorised — yet.

[BDanielMayfield]

The whole subject of sub stellar mass objects is extremely interesting to me. Heck, it's ALL interesting: the range of planet-like objects, the range of star-like objects, and stellar evolution. Hmm - you never hear much about planetary evolution. Why not? I guess because we only have 8 or so examples to study, and those are all "stuck" in time at about 4.5 billion years old.

It's not just the fixed age, it's the limited variety of planet types. For a Sun-like star, the two giant planets featured in this APOD possibly are way out in the local Kuiper Belt. Around other stars, there are sun-skimmers like the Hot Jupiters. We don't have either of those in our Solar System — probably a good thing, as a Hot Jupiter spiralling in towards its final orbit well inside a Mercury-equivalent distance would likely disrupt the formation of rocky inner planets, such as <points down> this one. I wouldn't be surprised if there were even weirder planet types lurking out there that we haven't discovered -- or even theorised — yet.

As an example of a new weirdo planet type I remember recently reading a theory that "blanets", planets that form in the dusty outer reaches of a Supermassive Black Hole's accretion disk might commonly exist. (Sorry, but I couldn't find the article to provide a link.)