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What Can We Actually Find on an Exoplanet? Part 3: Reading the Face of a Planet

August 19, 2026
What Can We Actually Find on an Exoplanet? Part 3: Reading the Face of a Planet
By Paul Sutter (https://ift.tt/SHoXF6k)

Earth's full disk, the "Blue Marble." Oceans, continents, clouds, and vegetation, all of which can in principle be read off a single distant pixel of light. Credit: NASA (public domain).

A single pixel of light holds astonishing detail. How ocean glint, rotational mapping, and the vegetation red edge let us read a distant planet's oceans, continents, and even forests, all without ever resolving it as more than a point.



August 19, 2026 at 03:47PM
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