The world’s newest and most powerful exoplanet imaging instrument, the recently-installed Gemini Planet Imager (GPI) on the 8-meter Gemini South telescope, has captured its first-light infrared image of an exoplanet: Beta Pictoris b, which orbits the star Beta Pictoris, the second-brightest star in the southern constellation Pictor. The planet is pretty obvious in the image above as a bright clump of pixels just to the lower right of the star in the middle (which is physically covered by a small opaque disk to block glare.) But that cluster of pixels is really a distant planet 63 light-years away and several times more massive — as well as 60% larger — than Jupiter!

And this is only the beginning.

“Most planets that we know about to date are only known because of indirect methods that tell us a planet is there, a bit about its orbit and mass, but not much else,” said Bruce Macintosh of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, who led the team that built the instrument. “With GPI we directly image planets around stars – it’s a bit like being able to dissect the system and really dive into the planet’s atmospheric makeup and characteristics.”


The left image shows shows normal light. The right image shows only polarized light. Leftover starlight is unpolarized and removed. The light from the back edge of the disk (to the right of the star) is strongly polarized as it reflects towards Earth, and thus it appears brighter than the forward-facing edge.


“Some day, there will be an instrument that will look a lot like GPI, on a telescope in space. And the images and spectra that will come out of that instrument will show a little blue dot that is another Earth.”

– Bruce Macintosh, GPI team leader

*The observations above were conducted last November during an “extremely trouble-free debut.” The Gemini South telescope is located near the summit of Cerro Pachon in central Chile, at an altitude of 2,722 meters.*

Source: Gemini Observatory press release

Read more: http://www.universetoday.com/107854/super-sensitive-camera-captures-a-direct-image-of-an-exoplanet/#ixzz2qUDXGHwX

“Throw your dreams into space like a kite, and you do not know what it will bring back, a new life, a new friend, a new love, a new country.”

“We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are.”

- Anis NIn (1903-January 14th, 1977)


 We can all learn something from these quotes. We should understand that their is a universe out there, that is bigger than us, and greater than us. We should all send our dreams into outerspace to interact with something that is awesome, and greater than ourselves, and our world.

- The Outerspace Message Team

    As most of us in the Star Trek generation have come to think, someday humans will be going out from Earth and colonizing other planets. And since we evolved on this planet we are used to the idea of living on planets. But when you think about it, the idea of colonizing #outerspace itself, makes more sense. When you think about it, giant space colonies orbiting the Sun is far easier and more practical than trying to live on actual planets.


    Living on planets have a lot of disadvantages. In our solar system the only other possibility is Mars for a planet where you might be able some day (in tens of thousands of years) be able to walk outside without a space suit on. So if your on a planet or the moon you’re going to have to build something that is as strong as a space habitat anyway. The disadvantages of living on planets or moons are.:

1. It’s fixed size.
   
2. Except for earth, going outside would require a space suit, and their is not lively outside environment.
   
3. It’s a gravity hole. Takes a lot of energy to take off and land if you are leaving to go somewhere else in the solar system.
4. Weather and the planet’s personalty must be taken into account. Floods, storms, hurricanes, earthquakes, volcanoes, etc.

    But – living in space is far more interesting. But before I describe it we are going to have to assume a far greater technology than we have today. So I’ll start there.

    In the future it is possible that we will have perfected mining and manufacturing in space (using 100% by autonomous robots of course.)

    Robotic space craft will be able to fly off to an asteroid and start extracting the raw materials. Water can be turned into rocket fuel and the sun provides an unlimited amount of electricity. These robots could manufacture giant space colonies to be the home of billions of people. And there’s plenty of room to make as many as we need to.

This may be far-fetched, but it could be possible, especially in the hearts and minds of our Star Trek generation.

From the Roy Crockett Blog