![]() An animation below illustrates what happens when a planet transits: This tutorial focuses on the transit method, where we search for the periodic dimming of light as an exoplanet passes in front of its host star and casts its shadow on our telescopes. Other methods at exoplanet astronomers' disposals include detecting gravitational lensing due to a planet (called the microlensing method), searching for the wobble in the star's position on the sky (called the astrometric method), and separating the light of the star from the planet and actually taking images (called the direct imaging method). Using super-precise and ultra-well calibrated instruments, astronomers searched for the tiny wobble in the star's speed caused by the planet's orbit. Historically, many of the first exoplanets to be discovered were found via the radial velocity method. While many exoplanets mirror the planets we know of in our own Solar System, many others are hard to recognize - including giant exoplanets orbiting extremely close to their host stars (called Hot Jupiters) to planets larger than Earth, smaller than Neptune, and likely rich in volatile materials (called super-Earths or mini-Neptunes), and planets which instead of orbiting one host star are found around two very closely orbiting stars (called circumbinary planets).Īstronomers have several methods at our disposal to detect exoplanets. The first exoplanets were found in the late 20th century (in 1989, 1992, or 1995, depending on one's definition of an exoplanet), and since then we have discovered thousands of these worlds orbiting other stars in the galaxy. This tutorial will then teach the reader how to download Kepler data (in particular data from Kepler's second mission called K2), look for planets in it, and learn the planetary properties using tools available in any modern web browser.Įxoplanets are planets, much like the ones in our Solar system, that we have discovered orbiting stars other than our Sun. This webpage is designed to give an introduction to how we find planets using the "transit method," one of the most common methods for detecting exoplanets today, and the method used by the Kepler space telescope. Studying these planets is freely available for anyone toĭownload off the internet. We are fortunate to live in a time not only of greatĭiscoveries and advancements in the field of exoplanet science,īut to live in a time when the most cutting-edge data for
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