Somewhat off on a tangential line, got this from my boss, from a Physics News
Update. Apparently a planet has been *seen* around Tau Bootis (~50 ly away). I
haven't seen the actual article or paper yet, as this is just a 'news update',
but it's interesting.
(article on planet at bottom of news update)
Mk
------------------------------------------------------------------------
-----
> Subj: Fwd: PHYSICS NEWS UPDATE -- reflected light from planet!
On Wed, 22 Dec 1999, The next time you ask me a hypothetical question,
> the answer is 'no' wrote:
> Somewhat off on a tangential line, got this from my boss, from
there's a paper in Nature; i can reproduce the abstract without breaking
copyright too hard, i think.
[!t] means a lowercase greek tau
[o:] means a lowercase o with two dots over it (a diaresis, in this
case, i think)
<excerpt>
Nature 402, 751 - 755 (1999)
Probable detection of starlight reflected from the giant planet orbiting [!t]
Bo[o:]tis
ANDREW COLLIER CAMERON*, KEITH HORNE*, ALAN PENNY+ & DAVID JAMES*
* School of Physics and Astronomy, University of St Andrews, North Haugh, St
Andrews, Fife KY16 9SS, UK
+ Rutherford Appleton Laboratory, Chilton, Didcot, Oxon OX11 0QX, UK
In the four years following the discovery of a planet orbiting the star 51
Pegasi, about 20 other planets have been detected through their influence on
the radial velocities of lines in the stellar spectra. The orbital motion of
the planet is detected through the smaller 'reflex motion' of
the star, which can be measured using high-precision spectroscopy. This
indirect technique cannot investigate the radius or composition of the planet,
and can place only a lower limit on its mass. Here we report the
probable detection of Doppler-shifted starlight reflected from the
planet known to orbit [!t] Bo[o:]tis with a period of just a few days. We find
that the orbital inclination is about i = 29, from which we infer that the
mass is about eight times that of Jupiter. The planet has the size and
reflectivity expected for a gas-giant planet.
</excerpt>
the text of the paper suggests that there are several groups looking at this
planet with a variety of methods.
> (article on planet at bottom of news update)
i think it's a bit strong to say that the planet has been 'seen'; there are no
images of it as an object. what the astronomers did is analyse the spectrum of
t bootis (if you'll excuse my spelling) and find a set of lines which they
believe to be light scattered from the planet rather than direct light from
the star. the fact that they can figure out its mass, size, orbital parameters
and albedo from that tells you that these people are rather clever, i'd say.
nice work, fellas!
tom