CAS AS 100 Chapter Notes - Chapter 13: Orbital Period, Binary Star, Hot Jupiter

• School: Boston University
• Department: Astronomy
• Course: CAS AS 100
• Professor: Michael Mendillo

Document Summary

~the first challenge is the scale model solar system. So looking for planets orbiting even the nearest of stars would be extremely hard to see. ~the second challenge is that the glare of the scattered starlight from the star might overwhelm any small spots of planetary light. The problem is lessened if we observe in infrared light because planets emit their own infrared and sun-like stars are dimmer in infrared. There are two ways to learn about distant objects: directly by taking images or spectra of the objects or indirectly by inferring existence or properties without actually seeing the objects. Most of the info we have about extrasolar planets comes from indirect study. The earliest discoveries came from the first approach but the champion of extrasolar planet discoveries is nasa"s kepler mission which uses the second. This detection is indirect because we discover planets by observing their stars without actually seeing the planets themselves.