Why don we have pictures of extrasolar planets?
Planets themselves (and Moons) do not provide any illumination (give off light of their own). They only reflect light coming from a source such as their Star (or their Sun). When you look up at a distant star, the strongest light hits your eyes and that is the light coming directly from the star. Remember that reflected light is much weaker and more scattered than direct light rays, so it blinds you and keeps you from being able to detect other weaker light that might have bounced off of planets and moons in distant space. All the light you see on the Moon, for example, is light hitting it from our Sun. When the Moon goes behind the Earth it is invisible from the Earth observers (no longer lit up by the Sun). The same is true when we use telescopes to look at the planets in our Solar System. They are lit up by light from the Sun, and do not have any light radiation of their own. Try this experiment… Go outside on a really dark night where there are no street lamps or lit up signs and
