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How Do We Find Exoplanets?

“How do we find exoplanets if they are so far away?”

Techniques for Finding Far-Away Exoplanets

One of the most exciting topics ever is exploring space. You get to feed your curiosity concerning interesting topics such as the emergence of new planets and the exploration of distant regions in space. Today's topic discusses the various techniques used to study exoplanets. Exoplanets are planets outside our solar system orbiting around other stars. Most of these techniques involve studying a patch of the sky for a long time and observing the behavior of the stars.

Tune in!

 

During this episode, you will learn about the following:

[00:01] Episode introduction

[00:25] Today's topic: How to find far-away exoplanets

[00:41] What is an exoplanet?

[01:51] Defining a light year

[02:44] Techniques for finding exoplanets

[03:14] #1Transit (eclipse) method; focuses on how bright the star is

[06:14] #2 Wobble (radio velocity) method; focuses on the color of the star

[06:33] Red-shift and blue-shift 

[09:18] Advanced NASA telescopes can be used to observe stars and planets orbiting it

[10:24] Episode recap

[10:37] The future in finding exoplanets

 

Notable Quotes

  •  "In order to get to exoplanets, we would have to travel for hundreds or thousands of light years." [01:31] 
  •  "Planets, although they are big compared to a human, compared to a star, planets are really small." [02:32] 
  •  "We know how close the planet is to the star because of how long it takes to go around it, and we know how big the planet is." [05:25] 
  •  "We have to watch for a long time if we want to find planets far away from the star." [05:45] 
  •  "When objects giving off light move away from the observer, that light seems slightly redder than when the object is standing still. And when it's moving towards us, that light looks a little bit bluer than it would if it stayed still." [06:33]
  •  "When planets orbit their stars, they are tugging on their stars." [07:20]

 

Let's Connect!

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