Extrasolar observations?

Hey,
I have an assignment to research "the most important astronomical observation of something outside our solar system in the last five years." I have a few ideas, I think it has to do with extrasolar planets, but it could be something else. I was just wondering if you guys had any ideas.
Thanks

"nicksch1404" wrote in message
...

Hey,
I have an assignment to research "the most important astronomical
observation of something outside our solar system in the last five
years." I have a few ideas, I think it has to do with extrasolar
planets, but it could be something else. I was just wondering if you
guys had any ideas.
Thanks

Extrasolar planets is a good choice, especially the observation that many
extrasolar planets in other systems are in resonance orbits.

Too many choices! One very specific observation might be the direct
measurement a couple of years ago, through orbital motions, of the mass of
the black hole at the centre of our Galaxy. The importance of this is that
it established directly, without any further need for quibbling, that
supermassive black holes do exist in the centres of galaxies. This leads to
a host of other theoretical results that go a long way to explaining the
origin of quasars, the current appearance and properties of giant elliptical
galaxies, among others.

I'm sure that others will come up with completely different suggestions, of
equal or higher merit.

--
Mike Dworetsky

(Remove "pants" spamblock to send e-mail)

"n" == nicksch1404 writes:

n I have an assignment to research "the most important astronomical
n observation of something outside our solar system in the last five
n years." I have a few ideas, I think it has to do with extrasolar
n planets, but it could be something else.

You could always tell the person that gave you this assignment that it
is ill-posed. Who defines "most important"?

You could look at issues of the journal Science. Every year (in
December or January), the editors try to select the most important
stories of the past year.

You could try to look at the meetings of the American Astronomical
Society or the Royal Astronomical Society to get a sense of what
astronomers find most important.

You could read through Andrew Yee's postings of press releases on this
newsgroup to see what has generated press.

You could scan the Astronomy Picture of the Day site to see if they've
tapped anything as an important discovery.

You could read all of the astronomical papers published in the past
five years and decide for yourself.

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