Comment on Real

Eiri@lemmy.ca ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

• REDACTED@infosec.pub ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  These are always illustrations based on whatever data we could gather. We almost never “see” the planets themselves.

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• themeatbridge@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  Considering we only know it’s there because it slightly dims the light from its star as it crosses during its orbit, you would be correct. At that distance, we would never see light bouncing off the actual planet. Even the star is basically a single pixel. We can estimate its size and orbit based on how quickly it crosses in front of the star and how much the light dims, and using those two numbers we can estimate its distance from Kepler 452.

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  • PancakesCantKillMe@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    I thought they could also see atmospheric composition as it passes in front of the star, no? Having that info and the data you’ve just mentioned they postulate if it’s habitable or not. Obviously not seeing any detail at all about land mass shapes, but perhaps composition? I’m not a spaceologist, so I’m only musing.

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    • grue@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      Yeah, but it’s still just a single pixel of light from the star. It just changes color slightly when the planet passes in front of it and the atmosphere gases absorb certain characteristic wavelengths.

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  • wraekscadu@vargar.org ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    We can build a telescope to see this by the way. The lens being the gravitational warping of spacetime by the sun. We go waaaay past the orbit of Pluto (I forgot the exact distance) and send probes there. We can have quite nice pictures of planets up to pretty nice distances.

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    • rooroo@feddit.org ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      Easy trip to make; it took the voyagers only about 40 years to pass Pluto?

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      • wraekscadu@vargar.org ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

        Depends on your definition of “easy”. Here’s the wiki article about it.

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• saltesc@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  lol. All those flyby probes we’ve sent to other planets in the system and we could’ve just pointed our interstellar telescope instead and looked for puddles.

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• Quibblekrust@thelemmy.club ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  Soon, though, using gravitational lensing of the sun. Sometime around 2035 maybe.

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• caseyweederman@lemmy.ca ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  You know that picture we have of the milky way?

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• NocturnalMorning@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  It’s called Project Hail Mary you ding dong! We sent someone there in a last ditch effort to save the Earth!

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