By Leonidas Papadopoulos, on November 4th, 2015
An artist’s concept of the free-floating planet PSO J318.5-22. Astronomers have found evidence that the planet is covered with clouds which rain down molten metals, even in the coldness of interstellar space. Image Credit: MPIA/V. Ch. Quetz
We tend to define planets as objects that need a star around which to revolve. Yet, […]
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By Leonidas Papadopoulos, on January 14th, 2015 The circumstellar disk around the young star HR 4796A, as imaged by the Gemini Planet Imager, which is mounted on the 8.2-m Gemini South telescope in Chile. These images reveal a complex pattern of variations in brightness and polarization around the HR 4796A disk. The western side (tilted closer to the Earth) appears […]
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By Leonidas Papadopoulos, on April 5th, 2014 Image of the exoplanet Beta Pictoris b made with the Magellan Adaptive Optics (MagAO) VisAO camera. This image was made using a CCD camera, which is essentially the same technology as a cell phone camera. The planet is nearly 100,000 times fainter than its star and orbits its star at roughly the same […]
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