Gemini Speckle Reconstruction of Pluto+Charon - Applications for Exoplanets

Admin Number of posts : 4320 Location : Earth Registration date : 2008-04-06

Quote :: Despite being infamously demoted from its status as a major planet, Pluto (and its largest companion Charon) recently posed as a surrogate extrasolar planetary system to help astronomers produce exceptionally high-resolution images with the Gemini North 8-meter telescope. Using a method called reconstructive speckle imaging, the researchers took the sharpest ground-based snapshots ever obtained of Pluto and Charon in visible light, which hint at the exoplanet verification power of a large state-of-the-art telescope when combined with speckle imaging techniques. The data also verified and refined previous orbital characteristics for Pluto and Charon while revealing the pair’s precise diameters.

Quote :: Kepler identifies planet candidates by repeatedly measuring the change in brightness of more than 150,000 stars to detect when a planet passes in front of, or affects the brightness of, its host star. Speckle imaging with the Gemini telescope will provide Kepler's follow-up program with a doubling in its ability to resolve objects and validate Earth-like planets. It also offers a 3- to 4-magnitude sensitivity increase for the sources observed by the team. That’s about a 50-fold increase in sensitivity in the observations Howell and his team made at Gemini. “This is an enormous gain in the effort underway to confirm small Earth-size planets,” Howell added.

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Planetesimal Number of posts : 133 Age : 53 Registration date : 2011-12-23

Very nice...smile for the camera!!!!!

-M-