Exoplanets

By Ben Barrett, Riley Brown, and Daniel Courtney

What is an Exoplanet?
- Any planet that orbits another star besides our sun outside of our solar
system.

- Thanks to the Kepler space telescope thousands have been discovered

relatively recently
Brief History of Exoplanets
- After the Kepler space telescope was sent into space the team noticed an
Earth like planet outside our solar system.
- As NASA puts it in their article on exoplanets, this planet was an early nugget
in the coming gold rush of exoplanet discovery
- After the first confirmed exoplanet in 1995 astronomers have found thousands
more and are predicting more in the trillions
The First Exoplanet
- In 1995 the first exoplanet was discovered to be a gas giant, about half the
size of jupiter, that orbits so close to its parent star that it only takes 4 days for
it to orbit.
- Because of this close proximity to the star, its wobble was very noticeable to
telescopes.
- This planet was named 51 Pegasi b
The Kepler Space Telescope
- Was launched in 2009 to find more exoplanets

- Around 3,300 confirmed exoplanets found

- Kepler's data is still revealing new planets to us but the failure of two reaction
wheels ended its mission early, in 2013
What Makes Up An Exoplanet
- Using the space telescopes, NASA can tell what the planets atmospheres are
made of thanks to light spectrums
- According to NASA, as the planet makes it way around its star it gives off a
little sliver of light, and from this light telescopes can take a spectrum to find
out what makes up the atmosphere of the planet
The Future of Exoplanet Discovery
A mission that is planning on launching in 2018 called TESS(Transiting Exoplanet
Survey Satellite). This satellite will survey the entire sky in search for more
exoplanets. It will be a two year survey and will target over 200,000 stars. This
study is to find Earth like planets so hopefully humans can find other life in our
universe
Direct Imaging
- Rather than using detections in a star's wobble, astronomers are starting to
use direct imaging of exoplanets.
- Although very difficult if a planet is big enough then you could detect it using
this method
- The First exoplanet to be imaged this way was 2M1207 in 2004
Habitable Planets
- In the past 20 years NASA has found thousands of planets that are around
the same size as Earth but most of them appear to be ice or gas giants
- However, they have found some rocky ones as well, and only time will tell if
they have the material to support human life
Work Cited
https://tess.gsfc.nasa.gov/

https://exoplanets.nasa.gov/the-search-for-life/exoplanets-101/

http://www.space.com/17738-exoplanets.html