Readers ask about exoplanets, spider silk and water beetles
Faraway view
Astronomers snapped the first photo of a solar system with a sunlike star and two exoplanets, Lisa Grossman reported in “A weird solar system cousin makes its photographic debut” (SN: 8/29/20, p. 5).
“At the scale of the picture, both planets — massive as they are — should appear as point sources, so I assume their spherical appearance is due to the light collection method for this direct imaging,” reader Jean Asselin wrote.