I've seen things you people wouldn't believe – because we used astrometry: A Saturn-like world hugging its star

Astronomers discovered an exoplanet for the first time using the astrometry technique with ground-based radio telescopes, according to fresh research published in The Astronomical Journal on Tuesday. Astrometry involves tracing tiny, irregular motions of a star to spot the telltale sign that it’s being tugged by the …

[Pascal Monett]

Great success !

"Quasars are very far away so they do not move "

When I think about it, the amount of knowledge we have gained in the past forty years on the Universe we live in is amazing.

Forty years ago, we were still wondering if ours was the only solar system with planets. Quasars were an unknown object and black holes were a theory.

Now, we have learned that quasars are just supermassive black holes at the center of a galaxy gorging on stellar gas, pulsars are white dwarfs that rotate real fast, white dwarfs have ginormous magnetic fields, some so powerful they are called magnetars, practically every star has planets, there are neutron stars, etc.

Its bewildering.

And then there's dark matter and dark energy to figure out.

We've learned so much, and there is so much more to find out.

Interesting times.

[Paul Kinsler]

Re: ...

One of the things that surprised me most was how suprised I was on seeing the New Horizon pictures of Pluto. Somehow, I seem to have subconciously expected to never see any proper pictures, despite following the lead-up news from the mission with interest. I think it was supposed to stay as it was, with the best view only ever being the Hubble's blurry dot image. :-)

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Great success !

> Forty years ago, we were still wondering if ours was the only solar system with planets. Quasars were an unknown object and black holes were a theory.

Quasars were first discovered in the late 50's and named as such in the early 1960's. So nearer to 60 years ago than 40. Time flies when you're having fun!

[arctic_haze]

Have they also discovered attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion?

Anyway, all those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain.