8 Things You Didn’t Know About Extrasolar Planets

While most of us have our middle on Mars at the moment , there ’s a especial stratum of astronomer who have their telescopes trained on planet a little bit farther away . Actually , a pot further away – completely outside our solar organisation , in fact . We ’ve institute almost 300 extrasolar planets ( or exoplanets ) so far , and the hunt stay . Here are some surprising facts about planets that are direction , way out there .

How many extrasolar planets have we establish so far ? 287 ( as of April 1 , 2008 ) .

When was the first one found ? Between 1988 and the early 1990s , several astronomers claimed to have found extraslar planet . However , the first confirm planet was regain in 1992 , and the first orbiting a normal ( non - pulsar ) sensation was find in 1995 .

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Which one is closest to Earth ? Epsilon Eridani b is a gas colossus a little smaller than Jupiter that orbits a star 10.4 unclouded age from Earth .

Which one is most probable to support sprightliness ? Gliese 581 snow is the smallest exoplanet found so far , and it orbit within the “ inhabitable geographical zone ” of its star .

What is the largest major planet ? GQ Lup b has a spate of more than 21 Jupiters , or 70 percent of our sunshine ’s mass . In fact , there is some disputation whether it is a planet or a brown gnome star in a companion orbit to GQ Lup itself .

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How do we detect extrasolar planets ? It ’s almost out of the question to find oneself them by looking through a scope – not because they are small , but because the contrast between the brightness of the star a planet orbits and the planet itself is too swell for us to pick out the planet . We can measure the gravitative wobble induced in the champion by the planet by looking at the shift in wavelength of light coming from the star ( the Doppler effect ) or we can examine the “ gravitational lensing ” event produced when visible radiation from a background wizard surpass through the distant solar system . In rare font , a planet transits in front of its star ( in relation to our point of survey ) , allowing us to point out the dimming of the mavin .

What can we find out from these method ? By combining the datum and doing some serious aperient computation , astronomers can figure out the pot and density of the satellite and the characteristics of its orbit . We can even learn something about the composition of the major planet and its atmosphere – the Hubble Telescope was able to observe methane in the atmosphere of a gas whale to begin with this yr .

Have we found any ground - like planet ? No . The majority of extrasolar planets found so far have been gas giants . We have find a few “ terrestrial ” major planet , denser than throttle behemoth , but they have all had five or more times the hoi polloi of Earth . uranologist call them Super - Earths . Image by : NASA .

Lesdilley