AY 101 Chapter Notes - Chapter 10: Orbital Period, Planetary Migration, Methods Of Detecting Exoplanets
15 Jul 2016
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Document Summary
In this chapter, we have explored one of the newest areas of astronomy-the study of planetary systems beyond our own. It is only a matter of time until we know the answer to these fundamental questions. How do we detect planets around other stars: we can look for a planet"s gravitational effect on its star through the astrometric method, which looks for small shifts that reveal the back-and-forth motion of stars. For the small fraction of planetary systems with orbits aligned edge-on to earth, we can search for transits, in which a planet blocks a little of its star light as it passes in front of it. What properties of extrasolar planets can we measure: all detection methods allow us to determine a planet"s orbital period and distance from its star. The astrometric and doppler methods can provide masses (or minimum masses), while the transit method can provide sizes.
