ASTRONOMERS CAPTURE FIRST IMAGES OF NEWLY-DISCOVERED SOLAR SYSTEM

Movie04-HR8799-adi(-large).mov: Movie showing the image processing used to separate the planets from the star. On the left are a series of snapshots from the Keck telescope, showing the bright starlight scattered by the hexagonal Keck telescope into a six-sided diffraction pattern, similar to a "lens flare" in a camera. As the movie plays and the Earth rotates, the "lens flare" pattern remains fixed while the planets and star appear to rotate (just as the stars overhead move at night). The planets are visible as dots starting at about 2:00 and 5:00. This series of images is used to make a reference pattern that can be used to remove the diffracted starlight. The middle image shows each 10-second snapshot after the reference pattern has been removed - the outer planets are now clearly visible.

Over the course of an hour, these snapshots are rotated to put the same orientation and then combined into a single highly sensitive total image, shown building up on the right image. HR 8799d can clearly be seen slowly appearing in the right image while the noise is being averaged-out by combining a greater number of snapshot images.

Credit: C. Marois (NRC-HIA), IDPS survey & Keck Observatory

Movie01-HR8799-Sol.mov: Schematic dynamic representation of the HR 8799 planetary system compared to our solar system (viewed pole on and at the same distance as HR 8799). HR 8799 planet’s orbits are plotted assuming a pole-on view and circular orbits. A Kuiper Belt-like ring of dust, suggested by excess infrared light seen by the IRAS and ISO satellites, has been added. The HR 8799 dust disk is one of the heaviest detected by ISO and IRAS. It is thought that HR 8799b dynamically interacts with this dust disk in a way very similar to Neptune and the Kuiper Belt in our solar system. The location of the planets are interpolated in time for HR 8799b and c and extrapolated for d. The animation starts July 2004 and ends September 2008.

Credit: C. Marois (NRC-HIA) & IDPS survey

Movie00-HR8799-real-orbitalmotion.mov: Observed orbital motion for HR 8799 planets. Data is from the W.M. Keck II telescope, from the original July 2004 image to the latest September 2008 data.

Credit: C. Marois (NRC-HIA), IDPS survey & Keck Observatory