First direct image of another planetary system located about 300 light-years away.

Reasonably Sane said:

I would need to know what technology allowed them to get such a clear picture from such a great distance to believe this picture is of what they claim it is. I'm not buying it - yet - especially from an earth bound telescope.

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Then find out n don't be a wet blanket

Reasonably Sane said:

I would need to know what technology allowed them to get such a clear picture from such a great distance to believe this picture is of what they claim it is. I'm not buying it - yet - especially from an earth bound telescope.

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Sjastro already gave the useful/correct answer in post #15, so I'll point you to his post. I'd word it this way: the image is made possible by simply having high enough resolution that allows distinguishing the light points as separated, if another wording helps.

But it's not the first direct image of an exoplanet. I'll post that next.

NASA’s Webb Takes Its First-Ever Direct Image of Distant World​

September 1, 2022

Editor’s Note: This post highlights images from Webb science in progress, which has not yet been through the peer-review process.
For the first time, astronomers have used NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope to take a direct image of a planet outside our solar system. The exoplanet is a gas giant, meaning it has no rocky surface and could not be habitable.
The image, as seen through four different light filters, shows how Webb’s powerful infrared gaze can easily capture worlds beyond our solar system, pointing the way to future observations that will reveal more information than ever before about exoplanets.
This image shows the exoplanet HIP 65426 b in different bands of infrared light, as seen from the James Webb Space Telescope: purple shows the NIRCam instrument’s view at 3.00 micrometers, blue shows the NIRCam instrument’s view at 4.44 micrometers, yellow shows the MIRI instrument’s view at 11.4 micrometers, and red shows the MIRI instrument’s view at 15.5 micrometers. These images look different because of the ways the different Webb instruments capture light. A set of masks within each instrument, called a coronagraph, blocks out the host star’s light so that the planet can be seen. The small white star in each image marks the location of the host star HIP 65426, which has been subtracted using the coronagraphs and image processing. The bar shapes in the NIRCam images are artifacts of the telescope’s optics, not objects in the scene. (Unlabeled version.) Credit: NASA/ESA/CSA, A Carter (UCSC), the ERS 1386 team, and A. Pagan (STScI).
“This is a transformative moment, not only for Webb but also for astronomy generally,” said Sasha ...


But having the higher resolution image in the OP post that distinguishes the light points more distinctly is definitely a great step up!

Chesterton said:

The first part of this post will be pedantic and a bit disingenuous, but the second part will be ingenuous. You say the image is "fantastic" which means the stuff of fantasy, and "incredible" which means not to be believed. You're both saying you don't believe the image is real.

I suspect what you're actually saying is that the image is "very cool". My sincere question is why is this image cool? A single cell of a blade of grass here on Earth is infinitely much cooler.

Really? We're currently having to fight a war against the Muslim colonizers of Palestine, and you want to do more colonizing? Probably a bad idea.

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"... infinitely much cooler",
and you criticize others' correct usage?

Estrid said:

"... infinitely much cooler",
and you criticize others' correct usage?

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Yes.

Chesterton said:

Yes.

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Droll.

dlamberth said:

You're looking at the first direct image of another planetary system located about 300 light-years away around a star like our Sun.




View attachment 338980

First Ever Image of a Multi-Planet System around a Sun-like Star Captured by ESO Telescope

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Astounding!