What is Digg?48 Comments
- radicaldementia, on 10/19/2009, -1/+60The way most these planets are discovered is astronomers look at a single star for a few days or weeks. Using image processing, they look for a very slight "wobble" of the star. If the star looks like its slowly shaking back and forth, then they know that there is a large planet orbiting the star.
This happens because of simple Newtonian mechanics. Planets technically do not orbit around the star, but rather the planets and the star together rotate around an imaginary center of mass. Since the star makes up 99% of the solar system's total mass, the center of mass is very close to the star, possibly inside it, but not at its center. Therefore, from an observer outside the system, the star will appear to have a very small orbit of its own, so small that it just looks like the star is rocking back and forth.
What this means is that almost all of the planets discovered thus far have not actually been seen directly, but indirectly through this wobble effect. This also means that the discovered planets are either very large (several times the mass of Jupiter) or fairly large (the mass of Jupiter) but orbiting very close to their sun at high velocity. Finding Earth-like planets is going to require new methods that are still in development. - NOD32user, on 10/19/2009, -0/+30They're watching us, watching them..
- radicaldementia, on 10/19/2009, -0/+20I actually recently attended a lecture at the Hayden planetarium by astrophysicist Ben Oppenheimer, who showed the basics of a new technique being developed that will basically block out the light from a star, so only the light from it's orbiting planets can be seen. This is no easy task as a star is about a billion times brighter than a planet, but since the light reflected is at different wavelengths, this should allow us to actually directly observe most large planets.
Even if we can only look at planets already discovered with the wobble method, it would be incredibly useful as we could analyze the wavelengths using spectroscopy and actually find out the composition of their atmosphere. This could allow us to either detect planets capable of supporting life, or maybe we'll find planets with "unnatural" chemicals in the atmosphere, which would strongly indicate the presence of life. - iCosmos84, on 10/19/2009, -0/+15@radicaldementia: I couldn't have described the process more eloquently. You illustrated center of mass and the radial velocity method beautifully.
@PowderedToasty: Astronomers are also employing the "transit method." In the event that an extrasolar planet passes in front of its parent star, astronomers can detect a infinitesimal flicker in that parent star's light. Astronomers are careful to distinguish between a variable star that expands and contracts and a transiting extrasolar planet--a variable star's light can drop in intensity rapidly (or appear to flicker). They continually observe the star to establish that it is indeed stable and the flicker is truly a planetary transit. This method enables astronomers to perform spectroscopic readings of the extrasolar planet's atmosphere. For example, imagine an Earth-sized planet orbiting a nearby star. Astronomers catch this extrasolar planet in transit and look for signs of oxygen, nitrogen, methane, and any other potentially organic byproducts. Some call this the "life signature" of a planet. - TextingTina, on 10/19/2009, -1/+14what's taking so long for interplanetary travel? The Jetsons were full of crap.
- TJ11240, on 10/19/2009, -2/+13We can always switch over to American mythological characters, such as Liberty and Democracy.
- greendalek, on 10/19/2009, -0/+11I sometimes wonder about the "naming" process as more and more worlds are discovered --logically there's got to come a day when we run out of Greek and Roman mythological character names...
- kooft, on 10/19/2009, -2/+13Would be nice to have more than 5 sentences in an article such as this.
- PowderedToasty, on 10/19/2009, -0/+11Thanks that's very interesting. Got any more info on these new methods? Are they things that are being worked on or are things we are hoping will come in the future?
- hijack, on 10/19/2009, -0/+10that must be a really big tube in Chile..
- Mnementh2230, on 10/19/2009, -2/+11Evolution is a well supported scientific theory that you don't even understand. That you continue to call something a fraud when you don't even understand it, aren't in a field related to it, and have no education on it is rather funny.
- TheOther1, on 10/19/2009, -0/+8I always feel like somebody's watching me.
- RealmDown, on 10/19/2009, -0/+6I am looking forward to this problem.
- Sylphid15, on 10/19/2009, -0/+5Look up Spectroscopy, it's a method to detect the chemical composition of planets and star from the light they emit and reflect.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spectroscopy
and check out this very interesting TED about it
http://blog.ted.com/2009/10/whats_inside_a.php - notthatnoise, on 10/19/2009, -0/+5good description. I was actually involved in a research project this summer using a different method. We were measuring the luminosity of a star and measuring how it changed with time. based on the small fluctuations we could determine if a large planet passed in front of the star during the time we measured. We could only get large planets this way but we got very accurate measurements of those planets sizes.
- newsmonster, on 10/19/2009, -2/+6If only we could find a way to travel to any of these within a life time.
- iheartbakon, on 10/19/2009, -4/+8████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████
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████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████ - RealmDown, on 10/19/2009, -0/+4Yeah, but Judy was HOT.
- Mnementh2230, on 10/20/2009, -0/+4"Yes, your little story is supported by a smattering of monkey bones, a truckload of arrogance and and an ocean of wishful thinking. Good luck with that."
Incorrect. It is supported by every fossil we've ever found, every method of dating proven to be accurate, and repeatable lab work. Wishful thinking is not required. It *IS* required to believe your book of fables, though, as there is no physical evidence to point to that being correct. - Shogi, on 10/19/2009, -0/+4God damn, now that's a ***** burn.
- Propethic, on 10/19/2009, -1/+5And your little story is supported by...... stories? Sounds like a pretty solid case you got, lemme know what God thinks
- Shogi, on 10/19/2009, -0/+3We'll probably just name the stars and number the planets, unless we visit or colonize them.
- nedzeve, on 10/19/2009, -0/+3http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gliese_581_e
"At a minimum of 1.9 Earth masses, it is the smallest extrasolar planet discovered around a normal star, and the closest in mass to Earth." - appleseed1234, on 10/19/2009, -0/+3Well then Colbert will just have one named after him.
- greendalek, on 10/19/2009, -0/+3Now that WOULD be awesome. And in that vein, there should be a planet Stewart, and a planet Pryor, and a planet Carlin, and a planet Kinison, and a planet Hicks --oh man, this is becoming WAY too cool...
- kooft, on 10/21/2009, -0/+2"Using image processing, they look for a very slight "wobble" of the star."
Sounds like you're talking about astrometry. Most exoplanets are discovered using the radial velocity method. The 'telescope' in the article has an accuracy of about 1m/s, which enables it to find much smaller planets. The planet that nedzeve linked to was discovered using this method.
The downside to radial velocity is that unless we know the orbital plane of the exoplanet is "edge-on" from our view from Earth, then we can only calculate the minimum mass of the exoplanet.
"We were measuring the luminosity of a star and measuring how it changed with time. based on the small fluctuations we could determine if a large planet passed in front of the star during the time we measured."
The transiting method is interesting because the atmospheres of the exoplanets can be analyzed, to varying degrees. I believe sodium was discovered in the atmosphere of one transiting exoplanet. - EarlOfLade, on 10/19/2009, -1/+3That is just because we have decided to not follow the Intergalactic Council's Naming Conventions, voted into effect in year 1729938 AIC (Anno Intergalactic Council).
Of course, we humans are only using unicode while the IGCNC uses the InterGalCo, a much more refined 1024-bit character set.. - nedzeve, on 10/19/2009, -0/+2The astronomy community has long moved away from refractors.
- beders, on 10/19/2009, -0/+2Rocky planets are not visible per se. All they usually do is reflect light from the orbiting star (or stars) which is a billion times fainter than the star itself.
- abk0110, on 10/19/2009, -0/+1Some folks still believe that assuming there is more life out there is jumping the gun a bit, and that doesn't mean that they cling to primitive beliefs and fairy tales.
- shylove, on 10/19/2009, -1/+2Soon they might even discover that life on our planet has disappeared...
- killdashnine, on 10/19/2009, -0/+1Next step, warp speed.
- nick2525, on 10/19/2009, -0/+1@radicaldementia: The Hubble is pretty powerful. If they can image back to the beginning of time, why can't they use it to image a solar system a few thousand light years away? Is this because the star's light blocks the view of planets?
- nedzeve, on 10/19/2009, -0/+1I'd be impressed if we could get to our neighbor in our lifetime.
- oriondr, on 10/19/2009, -0/+1Next step, singularity, then AI creates FTL :P
- shylove, on 10/19/2009, -0/+1True, but while they are looking outwardly what is happening inwardly on our own planet?? What if there gets to be more booming than blooming?
- Parrappa, on 10/19/2009, -0/+1I'm not sure I follow. Life is booming on earth.
- TJ11240, on 10/19/2009, -0/+1Google "Kepler"
- adamhaider, on 10/19/2009, -0/+0For all those who are interested in such topics, I recommend you check out a physicist called Dr Michio Kaku, he's very knowledgeable in this field.
- Propethic, on 10/19/2009, -1/+1There is a 99.9 repeating chance that you will die before that day happens
- Velocity14, on 10/19/2009, -1/+1This article and my bottle of wine are convincing me to play Master of Orion II.
...Yes. I'm drinking a bottle of wine in the afternoon on a Monday. - tgc1, on 10/19/2009, -1/+1Well when they get to the ***** planet you know we've got a real shortage of names left. I mean they've already got Uranus. It's no so far fetched that ***** will come soon enough.
- Shogi, on 10/19/2009, -2/+2Looking is nice, but god damn it, GET ME THERE!
- Intercon, on 10/19/2009, -4/+3Slowly but surely we begin to see the vast framework we inhabit. Planets, planets, everywhere. And some folks still believe that Earth is the only one harboring life...
When we finally make significant contact and/or discovery of life that generated on another world, can we finally abandon all the bigotry brought about by this pathetic clinging to primitive belief systems and fairy tales from the dawn of human reason?
I long for the day... - NOD32user, on 10/20/2009, -4/+2Biblically speaking, the earth is (or more correctly 'we are') at the center of Gods created order - but I don't recall Him saying that He didn't create any life on any other planets, which means that He could have.
- CrazedLeper, on 10/19/2009, -6/+1@tebriel2
"So you're saying "God" couldn't create other beings on other planets?"
No, didn't say that, but feel free to put words in my mouth. - CrazedLeper, on 10/19/2009, -6/+1@Mnementh2230 said:
"Evolution is a well supported scientific theory that you don't even understand. That you continue to call something a fraud when you don't even understand it, aren't in a field related to it, and have no education on it is rather funny."
*Yawn* {stretch}. Yes, your little story is supported by a smattering of monkey bones, a truckload of arrogance and and an ocean of wishful thinking. Good luck with that. - CrazedLeper, on 10/19/2009, -19/+1There is no one there. Neverlution is a fraud; get over it.
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