Of the more than 300 planets circling other stars we've found so far, only a handful have ever had their pictures taken directly.
Astronomers strongly suspect the vast majority of these so-called exoplanets exist based solely on indirect evidence, such as their gravitational effects on stars.
So the trick, then, is figuring out anything else about those planets beyond the fact that they're there.
Is a given exoplanet the size of Jupiter or Mars? What's it made of, and what's in its atmosphere? And perhaps the most exciting question, is there liquid water?
Enric Pallé, of Spain's Astrophysics Institute of the Canaries, and colleagues figured the best way to answer some of these questions would be to look no farther than home.
—Image courtesy Gabriel Perez Diaz/Nature
What's more, the researchers decided to advance the frontiers of 21st-century astronomy using one of the oldest known astrophysical tools: a lunar eclipse.
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