European Southern Observatory Releases Video on the Discovery of Planet 581c

ESO has made available a QuickTime (and iPod) video discussing the discovery of planet 581c.  It's at:

http://www.eso.org/outreach/press-rel/pr-2007/vid-22-07.html

Warning: the video is very large (64MB QuickTime/17MB iPod).  We'll let you know if we find a more compressed version or a local mirror site.

Some highlights from ESO's video:

1. It contains interviews with HARPS principal investigator Michael Mayor and lead author Stephane Udry, both from the Geneva Observatory, so you can see what these two people are like.
2. It also provides an animation which illustrates how 581c was detected using the radial-velocity method.

The video runs about 4 and a half minutes.