Да, действительно, отстал от жизни...
Кому интересно, гляньте:
http://astron.berkeley.edu/~gmarcy/sciam.html
Отрывок:
Here's how it works. An orbiting planet exerts a gravitational force on its host star, a force that yanks the star around in a
circular or oval path--which mirrors in miniature the planet's orbit. Like two twirling dancers tugging each other in circles, the
star's wobble reveals the presence of orbiting planets, even though we cannot see them directly....
By the year 2000 two Keck telescopes on Mauna Kea and a binocular telescope at the University of Arizona will become
optical interferometers, precise enough to image extrasolar planets. NASA plans to launch at least three spaceborne telescopes
to detect planets in infrared light.
One proposed NASA space-based interferometer, a second-generation telescope known as the Terrestrial Planet Finder, should
obtain pictures of candidate habitable planets orbiting distant stars. Arguably the greatest telescope ever conceived, Planet
Finder could spot other Earths, starting in about 2010. Using a spectrometer, it could analyze light from far-off planets to
determine the chemical makeup of their atmospheres--data to determine if biological activity is proceeding. This monumental,
spaceborne telescope would span a football field and sport four huge mirrors. Drawing from the data on planets found so far,
we believe other planets orbit similar stars, many the size of Jupiter, some the size of Earth. It may be that as many as 10
percent of all stars in our galaxy host planetary companions. Based on this estimate, 10 billion planets would exist in our Milky
Way galaxy alone.
[This message has been edited by TheFreak (edited 17-01-2001).]