For my presentation, I chose an article from The New York Times about extrasolar planets that had been discovered only a few days ago. Astronomers had been speculating whether it was planets or just failed stars, but after further discovery with new tools, they were able to record multiple planets orbiting distant stars. With the use of The Hubble Space Telescope, astronomers were able to block out the light from the stars and use infrared to detect the heat from the forming planet. From this, they discovered three planets, which were orbiting the star HR 8799 along with another planet orbiting the star Formalhaut.
The star Formaulhaut is visible in our sky and was looked at as an extremely bright star, but after new observation, it may be the light source for a solar system similar to ours. Using infrared, astronomers were able to detect a body moving in circular motion around the star. From these recent discoveries, astronomers may be able to see what the earth looked like when it was 60 million years old and how it was formed.
Reading about the stars and newly discovered solar systems, made me think more into what we had been learning in class. This story was so intriguing to me because in class we are learning about a time period where peoples' thoughts of the world around them were constantly changing. People looked to the sky as the heavens and had a hard time grasping something that disproved a religious answer. It made me wonder in this day and age how the public will respond to a discovery such as this. Will it bring more turmoil between religion and science? Religion verses science will be ongoing, but the more insight into how the planet was formed could ignite issues among religious extremists. Will people lose hope or belief because each day there are more scientific answers?
Overbye, Dennis. "Now in Sight: Far-Off Planets." The New York Times. 14 Nov. 2008.
Bryner, Jeanna. "First-Ever Images Taken of Extrasolar Planets." MSNBC. 13 Nov. 2008. 17
Nov. 2008 http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/27702538/
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