Extra planets anyone?

[iceworks]

Firstly, thanks to everyone who replied to my thread on relativity- me thinks relativity and gravity are not very cosy bedfellows.
I know astronomers can visualise stars orbiting other stars, eg: binaries, but is it possible to visualise planets orbiting stars outside of our solar system, eg: someone else's solar system? Or are they too far away to be illuminated and detected by telescope, radio waves ,distortion of orbits etc?
Also, with regards relativity, gravity is explained as a bending of space-time, how does relativity explain the rotation of the earth as it travels in a straight line through bent space around the sun, or the geo-synchronous orbit of the moon.:) :help:

[Gargoyle_Steve]

I think the last I had read was that there are now approximately 160 "extra-solar" planets believed/presumed to exist. We can't actually see these planets as such, but we can detect the effect they have on the brightness of their parent star as the planet passes between our point of view and it's parent star, and when this happens on a regular and predictable basis they tag it as another extra solar planet.

As for relativity and rotating objects I don't see any problem - travel in a given direction (be it a straight line or curved path) is due to a separate set of forces to the actual rotation of the said object.

Any 17 year old guy with a rear wheel drive car and a wet grassy paddock can tell you that direction of travel and the direction you're actually facing at any instant frequently has nothing to do with each other at all!
:eyepop:

Cheers!

[Gargoyle_Steve]

New information from Wikipedia:

"As of April 2007, the count of known exoplanets stands at 218."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extrasolar_planets