That's enough unhilarity

It occurred to me that most news recently - on the news sites and in the blogosphere - has been far too depressing. Bush and the rest of the Radical "Religious" Right and their agenda to turn the US into a theocracy and take us all back to the dark ages; the continuing criminal antics of Tom "Sleazy Crook" DeLay; the sad story of Terri Schiavo and how what should have been private family business became a wagon for the right, the church and just about everyone else with an agenda to jump aboard; the incredible, crass, unbelievable stupidity of people who will do anything to protect their beliefs when they have never spent even ten minutes to stop and think about why they believe what they do, in most cases without even a shred of evidence, let alone solid proof...

I'm sick of hearing about it all.

It's time instead for some real news. And here it is...

Astronomers capture photo of extrasolar planet

It doesn't sound like much when you say it quick, but just think about this. For one thing it's difficult enough to get pictures of planets right here in our own solar system. It's been seventy-five years since Pluto was discovered and we still don't have a picture of it that shows more detail than a fuzzy blob, for example. The best and most detailed photos we have of planets and moons here in our own planetary neighbourhood are taken by robot probes that get pretty close to their targets.

You may be aware that over the last few years astronomers have discovered over a hundred planets in orbit around other stars. All of these other planets were found because of the way their gravity makes the stars "wobble" a bit from side to side as the planet goes around. In other words, we know they're there but we've never seen them. Until now. For the first time ever, we actually have an image that we can say is a planet in orbit around another star.

Admittedly the astronomers had a few things going for them; the planet they tagged is very hot (over 3000 Fahrenheit), very big (twice the diameter of Jupiter) and far enough from its parent star so that the light from the planet didn't get swamped by the light from the star. And the photo by itself isn't that spectacular, either; you can't see clouds or oceans or land masses - just a glowing blob.

But that shouldn't detract from the fact that this is an incredible and historic acheivement. Telescopes are getting better and better with every passing year. It's only a matter of time before we're able to get pictures of extrasolar planets that show some real detail - clouds and oceans and land masses. And perhaps one day, even cities.

So click on the link and take a look at the picture and bear in mind that while it may not look like anything much right now, this picture will be in our grandchildrens's history books. Because it's the first of its kind, and that only happens once.