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Welcome to My Exoplanets!
Into this section you will find the following contents:
- How to analyze a light curve of an exoplanet and calculate its mass
- Analysing exoplanets located in Scorpius: GJ 667 C g and K2-24 b
- Analysing an exoplanet located in Sagittarius: HATS-12 b
- Analysing an exoplanet located in Sculptor: WASP-8 b
- DIY Exoplanet Lab
Introduction
An exoplanet is any planet beyond our solar system, in other words, an exoplanet is a planet that orbits a star which is not Sun. The first exoplanets were discovered in the 1990s and since then there had been identified thousands using different detection methods. According to Nasa exoplanet archive there are 4,575 confirmed planets, data actualized the eighteenth November 2021.
Why do scientists search for exoplanets?
Detecting new exoplanets and analyzing them sounds quite fascinating, but the most important question you should have asked yourself is: "How are exoplanets useful for scientists?".
One obvious reason that explain the exoplanet searching is answer one of the most profound questions of all time: whether life exists beyond Earth. The answer will change us forever, whether it reveals a universe rich with life, one in which life is rare and fragile, or even a universe in which we can find no other life at all.
Moreover, the hunt for an answer is also revealing important details about our own place in the universe: where we came from, how life came about and, perhaps, where we’re headed.
Pat Brennan asked seven researchers what drives the hunt for planets outside our solar system and got some surprising answers. You can read the entire article in NASA's Exoplanet Exploration Program, but here are the two answers I liked the best.
Matthew W. Smith, systems engineer, NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory:
"I search for exoplanets because I want to know whether there's another Earth-like world out there, and whether life could exist outside our solar system. I think about these questions every time I’m in a dark spot looking up at the night sky."
Padi Boyd, project scientist for NASA’s TESS mission (Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite):
"I search for exoplanets because I think one of the most profound and thought-provoking questions humanity has ever asked is, "Are we alone in the universe?" Philosophers and curious humans have been asking this question for thousands of years, but we are the first generation who have the tools at our fingertips to begin to answer this question with scientific observations. Not only do we now know of thousands of planets around other stars, and not only can we infer the existence of hundreds of billions more, but we are finding a dazzling array of planets, some very different from the ones in our own solar system. In a way, each new planetary system we discover teaches us a little bit more about how the universe works, and how the Earth, Sun and own planetary system fit into the whole."