[semi-OT] physics news update: extra-solar planet detected directly

Somewhat off on a tangential line, got this from my boss, from
a Physics News Update. Apparently a planet has been *seen* around
Tau Bootis (~50 ly away). I haven't seen the actual article or
paper yet, as this is just a 'news update', but it's interesting.

(article on planet at bottom of news update)

Mk
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>Subj:	Fwd: PHYSICS NEWS UPDATE -- reflected light from planet!
>
>
>Forwarded Message:
>> To: BIOLOGY DEPARTMENT <biology-everyone@gettysburg.edu>,  CHEM ...
>> From: "Laurence A. Marschall" <marschal@gettysburg.edu>
>> Subject: PHYSICS NEWS UPDATE 462
>> Date: Mon, 20 Dec 1999 20:27:06 -0500
>> -----
>> PHYSICS NEWS UPDATE			       
>> The American Institute of Physics Bulletin of Physics News
>> Number 462 December 17, 1999   by Phillip F. Schewe and Ben Stein
>> 
>> COMPETING ARROWS OF TIME. Lawrence S. Schulman of
>> Clarkson University has found that time might actually flow backwards
>> in certain regions of space.  This time reversal has nothing to do
with
>> quantum fluctuations or the spacetime-warping effects of a black
hole.
>> It's just ordinary matter obeying the ordinary and mostly time-
>> symmetric laws of physics. The difference lies in its statistics. If
the
>> laws of physics have no preferred direction then why do we never see
a
>> shattered wineglass jump back up on the table and reassemble itself?
>> The "arrow of time" concept enshrines this domestic disaster in the
>> form of a law, the second law of thermodynamics. The arrow describes
>> the tendency for macroscopic systems consisting of many particles
(the
>> falling wineglass) to evolve in time in such a way that disorder
grows
>> and information decreases. This tendency is statistical and does not
>> prevail at the microscopic level, where a movie of two atoms
colliding
>> would seem credible if run in the forward or reverse direction. The
>> wineglass, however, consists of zillions of atoms.  The reason we
never
>> see the glass re-assemble and lift itself (courtesy of the warmth of
the
>> original breakage returning from the floor and air) back onto the
table
>> is that this highly specialized (and, as we would say, unlikely)
>> scenario is but one of a myriad of possible configurations, in most
of
>> which the glass shards stay on the floor.  This statistical
explanation
>> leads to two puzzles.
>>    First, why does this arrow point the way it does? Why not the
other
>> way?  And second, why should it point at all? On the first question,
>> Schulman subscribes to the view that the "thermodynamic" arrow of
>> time is a consequence of the "cosmological" arrow reflected in the
one-
>> way expansion of the universe, a theory advanced some years ago by
>> Thomas Gold of Cornell.  As to the second question, that's exactly
>> where Schulman's  (schulman@clarkson.edu) new results have their
>> impact. The prevailing view holds that if opposite-arrow systems came
>> into even the mildest of contact, the order in at least one of them
>> would be destroyed. This is because from the perspective of one
observer
>> the coordination needed to reassemble the other's wineglass would be
so
>> fantastic that even a single photon could disrupt it. Not so, says
>> Schulman who, in his computer modeling of the universe, specifies not
>> one boundary condition in time (the big bang) but two, the other
being
>> a supposed "big crunch" when the universe would contract (or so it
>> would seem to us; from the perspective of that arrow, the universe
>> would be expanding).  In his model the two arrows of time (one
>> growing out of either end of the "timeline"; see the figure at
>> www.aip.org/physnews/graphics) can be mildly in contact and
>> nevertheless each have its wineglasses break and its rain fall
>> appropriately. Observers associated with either arrow might even
>> watch the other grow young---from a distance.
>>   Some relatively-isolated relics of matter subject to the opposite
arrow
>> might be found in our vicinity. By its own clock such a region would
>> be very old and no longer luminous, although gravitationally it would
>> not be anomalous, exactly the hallmark of dark matter.  Or we might
>> see an opposite-arrow black hole giving matter back to an accretion
>> disk, which in turn would feed it back to a companion star which
>> would seem (to us) to be coming into existence.   Schulman concedes
>> that recent observations may rule out a final crunch in our actual
>> universe but argues that there is still a lot we don't understand
about
>> our thermodynamic arrow, and that a competing time arrow might arise
>> from another, as yet unknown, cause. (Physical Review Letters, 27
>> Dec.)
>> 
>> STARLIGHT REFLECTED FROM AN EXTRASOLAR PLANET has
>> been reported by University of St. Andrews astronomers.  Roughly 30
>> planets have been detected around nearby stars through an indirect
>> method which monitors fluctuations in the stars' positions.	More
>> recently the shadow of an extrasolar planet was observed to transit
>> across the face of its star (Update 458).  Now light has been
detected
>> which apparently comes to us directly from a planet circling the star
>> tau Bootis, some 50 light years away.  The main difficulty was of
course
>> discerning the reflected light while blocking out the  glare of the
star
>> itself.   The planet seems to be blue-green in color, is twice the
size
>> of Jupiter, and 8 times as massive.	(Cameron et al., Nature, 16
December
>> 1999.)
>>