The Search for Alien Earths - How Coronagraphs Find Hidden Planets (4 minute long version)
Oce Eeco stashed this in Planetary Science
Source: YouTube Video
Stashed in: SETI, Space the Final Frontier?
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I had never heard of Coronagraphs before. They sound very useful.
Yeah, it's basically like hiding the sun with your hand to see a plane flying close to it, it's just a little bit more complex when you add diffraction.
The name comes from its original use by Bernard Lyot: blocking the central Sun light to observe its corona (Latin for crown).
That's a clever technique. Looks like we're finding a lot of hidden planets!
It's like finding a needle in a very big haystack.
Cool graphic illustration, by the way.
7:29 AM Feb 25 2015