[zucchini_head]

I think maybe your definition of "resolved" is a little skewed. It is not about the features of the object, but more by the Rayleigh Criterion [1][2]

So we can already (and have been able to for a long time) to "resolve" things as apparently-small as exoplanets, but for resolving _surface details_ we are one order of magnitude away for interferometers and two orders of magnitude away for standard single-mirror telescopes. Right?

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angular_resolution#Explanation [2] Lord Rayleigh, F.R.S. (1879). "Investigations in optics, with special reference to the spectroscope".

[contact_fusion]

I gently disagree that this is a skewed definition. By convention, a "resolved" image of an object implies an extremely high quality measurement. On the other hand, we can resolve the separation of the star and planet in the Gemini image, but it would be misleading to claim that this is a resolved image of the planet. It may seem like a petty distinction, but I think it is better - for clarity's sake - to reserve the term "resolved" for its most natural contextual definition. Perhaps I am oversensitive to this as many non-astronomers are often led to believe that artistic renditions of exoplanets are actual images, not conceptions.

This type of direct detection was one of the first of its kind, so I wouldn't characterize this as an old capability - 2008 is relatively recent. Telescope turnover time is very long; Gemini remains a prominent telescope for science-class observations. Additionally, most new telescope generations don't achieve an order-of-magnitude improvement in resolution, or at least, not anymore. There are a lot of serious, decadal-scale barriers to improving resolution that must be overcome.

In terms of angular resolution, the order-of-magnitude estimates are the minimum improvements, assuming that such a close and large exoplanet exists. (AFAIK, there is no such system.) In practice it is likely that we need even better angular resolution, as there are not many systems within 10 ly away, and extremely large exoplanets are not very common (relatively speaking.)