Recently, a new YouTube video of far-off exoplanets dancing around their star was posted. Despite being only 7 seconds long, this spectacle is made up of 12 years’ worth of observations!
In 2008, HR8799 became the first extrasolar planetary system to be directly spotted. The recently published video now features the famed system as its main character.
Using data accumulated over the previous 12 years, Northwestern University astronomer Jason Wang has created a stunning time-lapse video of the family of four planets, each more massive than Jupiter, orbiting their star.
Wang acknowledged that producing the film was a difficult task because it is frequently challenging to detect planets in orbit.
![WATCH] Distant exoplanets dance around their sun in this 12-year time-lapse video Today News](https://1734811051.rsc.cdn77.org/data/images/full/420170/moon-astronomy-space.jpg)
133.3 light-years away from Earth, in the Pegasus constellation, is a tiny star by the name of HR8799. HR8799 is thought to be near our solar neighborhood, despite the fact that it looks to be far away.
About five times as luminous and 1.5 times as huge as our sun is HR 8799. The system was created 30 million years after the extinction of the dinosaurs.
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In November 2008, HR8799 became the first system to have its planets directly imaged, making history. Wang became engrossed in the method right away, and he has continued to do so.
He and his colleagues applied for time to observe the system at the W.M. Keck Observatory on Hawaii’s Mauna Kea each year.
After seven years of observation, Wang produced the system’s first time-lapse movie. With the help of imaging data collected over a 12-year period, Wang has now created an updated video that covers the full-time period in a compressed 4.5-second time-lapse.
In order to generate the movie and eliminate atmospheric visual blur, Wang used a method known as “adaptive optics.”
He also used processing techniques and specialized equipment known as a “coronagraph” to lessen the glare from the system’s primary star. This explains why the video’s center is marked by a black circle. Without this, the glare would be too intense for onlookers to see the planets swirling around it.
Finally, Wang used a type of video processing to smooth the planets’ motion and fill in data gaps. The final image shows a star surrounded by four flimsy dots. In reality, the planets, which resemble fireflies, are massive gas giants. They resemble the bigger versions of Jupiter, Saturn, Neptune, and Uranus, according to Wang.
