Another extraordinary accomplishment for NASA.

The planet 55 Cancri e (click here) was first discovered in 2004 and is not a habitable world. Instead, it is known as a super-Earth because of its size: The world is about twice the width of Earth and is super-dense, with about eight times the mass of Earth....


...Spitzer first detected infrared light from an alien planet in 2005. But that world was "hot Jupiter," a gas giant planet much larger than 55 Cancri e that orbited extremely close to its parent star. While other telescopes have performed similar feats since then, Spitzer's view of the 55 Cancri e is the first time the light from a rocky super-Earth type planet has been seen, researchers said....

To the right is the Spitzer Space Telescope.


Lyman Spitzer, Jr. (1914-1997) (click here) was one of the 20th century's great scientists. A renowned astrophysicist, he made major contributions in the areas of stellar dynamics, plasma physics, thermonuclear fusion, and space astronomy. Lyman Spitzer, Jr. was the first person to propose the idea of placing a large telescope in space and was the driving force behind the development of the Hubble Space Telescope....


These telescopes operate above Earth's atmosphere to eliminate gases that distort the view of space from Earth's surface. All to often we take our technology for granted and while this seems like 'just another pretty picture' of outer space, one has to realize the accomplishment of the scientists involved to provide these images. Controlling the view of such photos is really an accomplishment.