Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

NASA to Unveil New Exoplanet Discovery Tomorrow

space.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–44 of 44 posts

Re: NASA to Unveil New Exoplanet Discovery Tomorrow

#41

Post by bjd2385 »

tgb wrote: post #35
bjd2385 wrote: post #25

This is really cool. One day I'm going to build my own observatory and observe star light curves and survey for supernovae.

I read one blog post about detecting an (already known) exoplanet just using a telephoto lens and a DSLR. So it's definitely affordable!

I've read about amateurs detecting them with their instruments, like 12" SCTs. I don't know when I'll be able to afford it (probably a small Meade, SBIG CCD, etc.), but I'll definitely be writing my own algorithms/code to process the data!

Re: NASA to Unveil New Exoplanet Discovery Tomorrow

#42

Post by juancampa »

flippyhead wrote: post #32
binalpatel wrote: post #10

It still blows my mind that we can detect planets orbiting an entirely different stars. And more so - that these tiny pixels that we can just barely detect, are full-fledged planets that may have atmospheres, water cycles, and who knows what else.

Gravitational lensing is another mind blowing thing we do: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gravitational_lens

I don't think we do any gravitational lensing ourselves. Unless by "we" you mean the Milky Wayans.

Edit: to be clearer, if I understand correctly gravitational lensing is a phenomenon that happens, not something we do :)

Re: NASA to Unveil New Exoplanet Discovery Tomorrow

#44

Post by pault »

juancampa wrote: post #42
flippyhead wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Gravitational lensing is another mind blowing thing we do: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gravitational_lens

I don't think we do any gravitational lensing ourselves. Unless by "we" you mean the Milky Wayans. Edit: to be clearer, if I understand correctly gravitational lensing is a phenomenon that happens, not something we do :)

I think flippyhead (hi Peter!) meant that we are able to utilize gravitational lensing to see beyond the natural limit of our telescopes.
Post reply on HN