Post by auntym on Sept 24, 2018 14:37:25 GMT -6
nasa.tumblr.com/post/178418578164/10-steps-to-confirm-a-planet-around-another-star?linkId=57302012
10 Steps to Confirm a Planet Around Another Star
So you think you found an exoplanet – a planet around another star? It’s not as simple as pointing a telescope to the sky and looking for a planet that waves back. Scientists gather many observations and carefully analyze their data before they can be even somewhat sure that they’ve discovered new worlds.
Here are 10 things to know about finding and confirming exoplanets.
This is an illustration of the different elements in our exoplanet program, including ground-based observatories, like the W. M. Keck Observatory, and space-based observatories like Hubble, Spitzer, Kepler, TESS, James Webb Space Telescope, WFIRST and future missions.
1. Pick your tool to take a look.
The vast majority of planets around other stars have been found through the transit method so far. This technique involves monitoring the amount of light that a star gives off over time, and looking for dips in brightness that may indicate an orbiting planet passing in front of the star.
We have two specialized exoplanet-hunting telescopes scanning the sky for new planets right now – Kepler and the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) – and they both work this way. Other methods of finding exoplanets include radial velocity (looking for a “wobble” in a star’s position caused by a planet’s gravity), direct imaging (blocking the light of the star to see the planet) and microlensing (watching for events where a star passes in front of another star, and the gravity of the first star acts as a lens).
Here’s more about finding exoplanets: exoplanets.nasa.gov/5-ways-to-find-a-planet/
CONTINUE READING: nasa.tumblr.com/post/178418578164/10-steps-to-confirm-a-planet-around-another-star?linkId=57302012
10 Steps to Confirm a Planet Around Another Star
So you think you found an exoplanet – a planet around another star? It’s not as simple as pointing a telescope to the sky and looking for a planet that waves back. Scientists gather many observations and carefully analyze their data before they can be even somewhat sure that they’ve discovered new worlds.
Here are 10 things to know about finding and confirming exoplanets.
This is an illustration of the different elements in our exoplanet program, including ground-based observatories, like the W. M. Keck Observatory, and space-based observatories like Hubble, Spitzer, Kepler, TESS, James Webb Space Telescope, WFIRST and future missions.
1. Pick your tool to take a look.
The vast majority of planets around other stars have been found through the transit method so far. This technique involves monitoring the amount of light that a star gives off over time, and looking for dips in brightness that may indicate an orbiting planet passing in front of the star.
We have two specialized exoplanet-hunting telescopes scanning the sky for new planets right now – Kepler and the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) – and they both work this way. Other methods of finding exoplanets include radial velocity (looking for a “wobble” in a star’s position caused by a planet’s gravity), direct imaging (blocking the light of the star to see the planet) and microlensing (watching for events where a star passes in front of another star, and the gravity of the first star acts as a lens).
Here’s more about finding exoplanets: exoplanets.nasa.gov/5-ways-to-find-a-planet/
CONTINUE READING: nasa.tumblr.com/post/178418578164/10-steps-to-confirm-a-planet-around-another-star?linkId=57302012