Astronomy 161 - Introduction to Solar System Astronomy

Lecture 46: ExoPlanets - Planets around Other Stars

12.01.2006 - By Richard PoggePlay

Download our free app to listen on your phone

Download on the App StoreGet it on Google Play

Are there planets around other stars? Are there Earth-like planets

around other stars? Do any of those harbor life? Intelligent life?

We'd like to know the answers to all of these questions, and in recent

years we've made great progress towards at least answering the first.

To date, more than 200 planets have been found around other stars, most in the

interstellar neighborhood of the Sun, but a few at great distance. This

lecture reviews the search for ExoPlanets, discussing the successful

Doppler Wobble, Transit, and Microlensing techniques. What we have

found so far are very suprising systems, especially Jupiter-size or

bigger planets orbiting very close (few hundredths of an AU) from their

parent stars. The existance of a significant population of so-called

"Hot Jupiters" may be telling us that planetary migration can be much

more extreme that we saw in our own Solar System, or that these

planetary system formed in a very different way than ours. It seems

appropriate to end this class with more questions than answers, but

that's where the science becomes most exciting. Recorded 2006 Dec 1 in

100 Stillman Hall on the Columbus campus of The Ohio State University.

More episodes from Astronomy 161 - Introduction to Solar System Astronomy