Finding planets

Credit: Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory

Congrats to my astrophysicist friend Bruce and the rest of the Gemini team on imaging planets outside the solar system!

Bruce is one of a group of my friends from university who still keep in touch. After graduating, we scattered across the globe. Some got married and had kids. Occupations include programmers, authors, astrophysicists, journalists, illustrators, experimental high energy physicists, biologists, editors, system analysts, among others. One helped develop the iPhone. Several are Scrabble gurus. And one discovers planets. :-D

Jeff's and my home domain, electricpenguin.com, was based on a zine I used to edit years ago as a way of keeping my friends in touch. I keep toying with the idea of resurrecting The Electric Penguin as an actual publication but have held off because I already have way too many projects on the go.

One of the ways we keep in touch now is via a private mailing list hosted by one of the group. It's pretty quiet most of the time, but every so often there will be a flurry of activity, like with this latest news.

An amusing quote from my friend Andy: "That brings up the number of people I know who have discovered planets to... 1."

Heh.

A side note: Another friend of mine, Jean, worked on the original adaptive optics. Jean and Bruce have never met, but I do think it very cool that I have two friends who contributed.

Related articles:
Astronomers capture first images of newly-discovered solar system (LLNL)
Fuzzy photos taken of planets outside solar system (CBC news)
Scientists take first photos of planets orbiting other stars (LA Times)

My earlier Blathering about Bruce:
Boardgames, paranoia, and astrophysics