Infrared radiation from two extrasolar planets has been measured from the dip in total light as the planets pass behind their parent stars — a milestone on the road to the direct imaging of such planets. Detecting light from planets orbiting stars other than the Sun is one of the most challenging tasks in observational astronomy: a trickle of planetary photons must somehow be separated from the flood of light emitted by the planet's parent star. The classic approach is to employ one or more large telescopes, suppress the stellar glare as much as possible by means of coronagraphic masks or destructive interference, and extract the planetary signal from the residual starlight.
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