Our First Glimpse of an Alien World

Discover Magazine writes about our first glimpse of an alien world.

Achieving a feat that seemed impossible not so long ago, a team of scientists working with the Hubble Space Telescope captured the first visible-light image of a planet orbiting another star.

This stuff inspires me. It makes me wonder about what’s out there – other worlds, other suns, other houses, other dinner plates. We’ll never know, of course, because Fomalhaut b is 25 light years away and that means flying for 25 years at light speed just to get there – and maybe to find nothing. Any transmission we make will take 50 years minimum to get a reply. And as we all know, long distance relationships never work.

But still. Somewhere out there….beneath the pale moonlight….

Oh. That’s a lyric. Sorry.