Tools for taking pictures of distant planets
Our Sun isn't the only star with planets around it. Astronomers have detected planets orbiting more than 200 other stars, although they've never seen them directly. Through a telescope, a planet's faint glow is hidden by the bright light of the star. But with updated versions of tools such as interferometers and coronagraphs, astronomers may soon take the first pictures of planets orbiting other stars and begin learning more about these distant worlds.
The Exhibit in the Rose Center for Earth and Space
This new exhibit presents the science and techniques behind the study of planets orbiting nearby stars. Two historically important astronomical instruments, the Michelson Interferometer, which is on loan from the Mt. Wilson Institute and the Observatories of the Carnegie Institution of Washington; and the Johns Hopkins Adaptive Optics Coronagraph, which is now part of the Museum's permanent collection, are presented to illustrate the technical difficulties of modern astronomical investigations. In the 1920s A. A. Michelson developed and used the interferometer to measure stellar diameters for the first time. In the 1990s Dr. Ben R. Oppenheimer, Assistant Curator of Astrophysics, and colleagues used the Hopkins coronagraph to discover the first brown dwarf.
This exhibit, part of the Education and Public Outreach efforts of NASA’s Navigator Program, was made possible through a grant from NASA’s Michelson Science Center.
