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It has long been the wish of astronomers to discover proof of other planets beyond our Sun. For most of astronomy's history exactly how the planets formed has remained unknown. But with recent years has come new ideas and new theories, and the discovery of planets orbiting other stars could support these.
However, once these other worlds were discovered, every theory that was on the board was suddenly tossed out the window. First came the discovery of planets around pulsars, the ultra-dense corpses of suns that had died in supernova explosions. Quickly it was decided that these were aberrations, or better yet that they were not planets in the sense of having formed with the star, but rather that they must have formed from the debris left over from the star's death.
Next came the discovery of a true planet, found orbiting a truly Sun-like star. 51 Pegasi held a planet, a giant similar to Jupiter. Or so it seemed. It was quickly obvious, however, that even this world was far beyond the realm of theory. A Jovian world, orbiting far closer to its sun than Mercury orbits to our own. This flew in the face of all understanding, and as a consequence how we regard planet formation has completely changed.
As of this writing, we are still limited to discovering worlds that are gas giants. We study these in Jovian mass units, where Jupiter equals a single unit, and thus far we have found worlds that mass far less than Jupiter (something less than Saturn, in fact), but the discovery of a terrestrial world, a planet that is rocky and potentially a refuge for life, eludes us. There are upcoming space missions that may reveals these to us, of course, but in the mean time we are confronted with a veritable zoo of gas giants. We will explore them here, these worlds beyond.
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Methods of Planet Detection: Thus far there have only been a couple of methods that have successfully used to detect extrasolar planets. They are quite effective, but because of their methodology, they are biased towards the massive "hot Jupiters". Other worlds can be detected as well, but the time required for confirmation can stretch into decades. Future methods will use more immediate procedures, while others still in the conceptual stage will actually allow us to see these worlds. Last updated November 21, 2003. |
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Previous, Spurious Planetary Detections: There have been claims of planetary discoveries before the confirmed findings of the last decade. Of them, all have been disproved as either spurious data or simple mistakes on the observers' parts. However, this doesn't invalidate the efforts of those who "found" them. Without their initial searches, and even their mistaken finds, it is possible that the search for extrasolar worlds today would far less productive. Last updated December 15, 2003. |
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Extrasolar Worlds: These are the worlds that have been discovered, and more are being discovered every month. Many of these worlds orbit stars similar to our Sun, others orbit bloated giants. Some even orbit the dead husks of stars. But all are real worlds in their own right, real places that truly exist. It astounds one to learn that there are entire worlds out there with histories as long as Earth's, and yet they will remain even less than the dots of light that are their suns to our probing eyes. But that too may change in time. Last updated November 15, 2003. |
 Primary Planetary Search Sites: These
are the main sites that lead the scientific community in extrasolar
planetary discoveries. |
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© John M. and Margo
L. Dollan 2003 Other usages cited at Usage Permission Page This Page first uploaded October 7, 2003 Most recent update for this page December 15, 2003 |
