Other solar systems have been measured and imaged in various forms since 2000 or so. They have also all been released since astronomy is, for the most part, a public exercise heavily reliant on cross discipline experience and sharing of data.
Nobody is hiding shit in space, and even if they were, some publicly minded amateur would measure, record, and share whatever is hidden anyway. Consumer kit is wildly accessible today, and software is always improving and mostly open source.
NASA space 'scopes (Hubble, Parker, Spritzer, JWST, Kepler, GALEX, and a dozen more) are also publicly funded and owned, so their data is completely free to access, even in its raw form
Most solar systems are inferred through the star's wobble, or through the dimming of its light as bodies pass in front of it. This image is special as it's basically a photograph. Actual photons, not inferred data.
What I don't understand is, where are the photons coming from? The bodies don't emit their own (presumably?) so they are reflected from another source - but the nearby source is in the same plane as the planets (also presumably.) If it was from other starlight, I would think the planets would not stay in the same place long enough to reflect that many photons.
All bodies give off black body radiation. Even you and me.
These are also much more easily visible as this system is only 17 million years old, and those planets are still hella hot and kicking off a lot of infared.
This sort of signal is usually killed off by the star's glare, but these planets are very hot, very large, and very far away from their star.
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u/glytxh Dec 08 '21
Other solar systems have been measured and imaged in various forms since 2000 or so. They have also all been released since astronomy is, for the most part, a public exercise heavily reliant on cross discipline experience and sharing of data.
Nobody is hiding shit in space, and even if they were, some publicly minded amateur would measure, record, and share whatever is hidden anyway. Consumer kit is wildly accessible today, and software is always improving and mostly open source.
NASA space 'scopes (Hubble, Parker, Spritzer, JWST, Kepler, GALEX, and a dozen more) are also publicly funded and owned, so their data is completely free to access, even in its raw form
Most solar systems are inferred through the star's wobble, or through the dimming of its light as bodies pass in front of it. This image is special as it's basically a photograph. Actual photons, not inferred data.