In a stunning new timelapse collected over a dozen years, four Jupiter-mass exoplanets dance around their distant star.
Where is HR 8799?
HR8799 is located approximately 133 light-years from Earth like Planets in the constellation Pegasus and is 1.5 times the mass of our sun. (The nearest star system to our planet is Alpha Centauri which is a little more than 4 light-years away.)
While HR8799 is slightly larger than our midlife sun, it is much brighter: it has five times the intrinsic brightness of Earth like Planets beginning. HR8799 is also very young star, at only 30 million years old, compared to our sun, which is 4.5 billion years old.
Hawaii’s W. M. Keck Observatory:
“HR8799” was the first star system to have its planets directly imaged, which was successfully accomplished and was announced in November 2008. The new timelapse features footage from Hawaii’s W. M. Keck Observatory on Maunakea.
Keck has several advantages for astronomy. It has adaptive optics to compensate for the blurring effects of the Earth’s atmosphere and a coronagraph that blocks light from the parent star while allowing reflected-light “fireflies” (planets) to shine through.
What does astrophysicist Jason Wang say in this regard?
According to Northwestern University astrophysicist Jason Wang: “This video shows Earth like Planets moving on a human time scale. I hope it enables people to enjoy something wondrous,”. In the physical world, it takes about 45 years for the planet nearest to the star “HR8799” to complete a single circuit. The most faraway world would take half a millennium (500 years) to orbit the star once.
Astrophysicist Jason Wang of Northwestern University claims the goal of the newly released video is to make the long orbits of these massive exoplanets more visible to a wider audience.
Astrophysicist Jason Wang said: “There’s nothing to be gained scientifically from watching the orbiting systems in a timelapse video, but it helps others appreciate what we’re studying,”. Moreover, he said: “It can be difficult to explain the nuances of science with words. But showing science in action helps others understand its importance.”
Wang and his colleagues used seven years of periodic observations to create one timelapse. The updated timelapse includes 12 years of observations from when Wang’s team had access to the telescope. Earthl ike Planets dance around distant stars in a stunning 12-year timelapse!
In a stunning new timelapse collected over a dozen years, four Jupiter-mass exoplanets dance around their parent star.
What does astrophysicist Jason Wang say in this regard?
According to Northwestern University astrophysicist Jason Wang: “This video shows planets moving on a human time scale. I hope it enables people to enjoy something wondrous,”. In the physical world, it takes about 45 years for the planet nearest to the star “HR8799” to complete a single circuit. The most distant world would take half a millennium (500 years) to orbit the star once.
Astrophysicist Jason Wang of Northwestern University claims the goal of the newly released video is to make the long orbits of these massive exoplanets more visible to a wider audience.
Astrophysicist Jason Wang says about the distant star: “There’s nothing to be gained scientifically from watching the orbiting systems in a timelapse video, but it helps others appreciate what we’re studying,”. Moreover, he said: “It can be difficult to explain the nuances of science with words. But showing science in action helps others understand its importance.”
Wang and his colleagues used seven years of periodic observations to create one timelapse. The updated timelapse includes 12 years of observations from when Wang’s team had access to the telescope.
