• Eiri@lemmy.ca
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    2 months ago

    There’s no way in hell we have the resolution to see continents in another star system.

    • themeatbridge@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      Considering we only know it’s there because it slightly dims the light from its star as it crosses during its orbit, you would be correct. At that distance, we would never see light bouncing off the actual planet. Even the star is basically a single pixel. We can estimate its size and orbit based on how quickly it crosses in front of the star and how much the light dims, and using those two numbers we can estimate its distance from Kepler 452.

    • REDACTED@infosec.pub
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      2 months ago

      These are always illustrations based on whatever data we could gather. We almost never “see” the planets themselves.