Pictures of Distant Worlds

In the past three decades, more than 6000 planets have been discovered orbiting other stars beyond our own Solar System. However, we still don’t know if our Solar System is rare or unique - the powerful techniques that detect extrasolar planets have discovered systems very different than our own. In recent years, advances in technology have allowed a handful of giant planets around other stars to be imaged directly. Find out about the first-ever images of other solar systems - and the technology that has allowed us to discover them, such as the Gemini Planet Imager - as well as the future planet-hunting space telescopes. The ultimate goal is detection of a second ‘pale blue dot’ - an Earth twin where we could even see the biosignatures of extrasolar life.

Bruce Macintosh is the Director of the University of California Observatories in California and Hawaii. His research focuses on the study of extrasolar planets, in particular the study of such planets through direct imaging. Direct imaging of extrasolar planets involves blocking, suppressing, and subtracting the light of the bright parent star so that a planet hundreds of thousands of times fainter can be seen and studied in detail. Dr. Macintosh co-led the team that imaged the first extrasolar planets, and was the Principal Investigator of the Gemini Planet Imager, an advanced adaptive optics planet-finder for the Gemini South telescope.