There are planets in orbit around stars outside our solar system – and even rogue planets. But finding them is very hard. They are small and dim. But ideally, we’d like to see them directly, in our telescopes. Is that possible?
Imagine a planet that is so far away from us that it takes 40 years for its light to reach us. Now imagine that this planet has not one, but two stars that it orbits around. And finally, imagine that this planet has clouds made of sand particles that change the brightness of its atmosphere wildly as they move in the air.
In our galaxy, there are many planets that wander alone in the dark, without a star to orbit. Some of these rogue planets could have moons which remain in tow, and these moons could be more than just cold and barren rocks.
Many people feel that it’s very important for humanity’s long term survival that we become a multiplanet species. But what about traveling to exoplanets? Can we reach the stars?
A massive, Jupiter-sized exoplanet has been discovered orbiting a small, low-mass star and this discovery is challenging theories on how planets form around their stars. This is unusual because planets this large are not supposed to form around low-mass stars.
Our galaxy likely holds hundreds of billions of planets around other stars but when and how did we begin finding them? What was the first exoplanet detected? It turns out that the first discovery wasn’t one, but two planets in the same system.
What are the best ways to see planets around other stars? One can imagine that it is not easy. This episode looks at ways astronomers find exoplanets.
WASP-39 b is a hot and puffy planet with a mass roughly one-quarter that of Jupiter and a diameter 1.3 times greater than Jupiter
Aside from our own solar system, one of the most studied stellar systems lies about 40 light-years away in the direction of the constellation Aquarius. Seven rocky exoplanets orbiting the TRAPPIST-1 star. more about it at #365DaysOfAstro
Astronomers have found evidence of a possible planet outside of our Milky Way galaxy. If confirmed, this is the first time that a planet has been detected in another galaxy. It is located in the spiral galaxy Messier 51, also called the Whirlpool Galaxy.