Exoplanet
An exoplanet or extrasolar planet is a planet outside the Solar System. The first possible evidence of an exoplanet was noted in 1917 but was not then recognized as such. The first confirmation of the detection occurred in 1992. A different planet, first detected in 1988, was confirmed in 2003. As of 1 March 2024, there are 5,640 confirmed exoplanets in 4,155 planetary systems, with 895 systems having more than one planet.[1][2] The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) is expected to discover more exoplanets, and to give more insight into their traits, such as their composition, environmental conditions, and potential for life.[3]
There are many methods of detecting exoplanets. Transit photometry and Doppler spectroscopy have found the most, but these methods suffer from a clear observational bias favoring the detection of planets near the star; thus, 85% of the exoplanets detected are inside the tidal locking zone.[4] In several cases, multiple planets have been observed around a star.[5] About 1 in 5 Sun-like stars[a] have an "Earth-sized"[b] planet in the habitable zone.[c][6][7] Assuming there are 200 billion stars in the Milky Way,[d] it can be hypothesized that there are 11 billion potentially habitable Earth-sized planets in the Milky Way, rising to 40 billion if planets orbiting the numerous red dwarfs are included.[8]
The least massive exoplanet known is Draugr (also known as PSR B1257+12 A or PSR B1257+12 b), which is about twice the mass of the Moon. The most massive exoplanet listed on the NASA Exoplanet Archive is HR 2562 b,[9][10][11] about 30 times the mass of Jupiter. However, according to some definitions of a planet (based on the nuclear fusion of deuterium[12]), it is too massive to be a planet and might be a brown dwarf instead. Known orbital times for exoplanets vary from less than an hour (for those closest to their star) to thousands of years. Some exoplanets are so far away from the star that it is difficult to tell whether they are gravitationally bound to it.
Almost all planets detected so far are within the Milky Way. However, there is evidence that extragalactic planets, exoplanets located in other galaxies, may exist.[13][14] The nearest exoplanets are located 4.2 light-years (1.3 parsecs) from Earth and orbit Proxima Centauri, the closest star to the Sun.[15]
The discovery of exoplanets has intensified interest in the search for extraterrestrial life. There is special interest in planets that orbit in a star's habitable zone (or sometimes called "goldilocks zone"), where it is possible for liquid water, a prerequisite for life as we know it, to exist on the surface. However, the study of planetary habitability also considers a wide range of other factors in determining the suitability of a planet for hosting life.[16]
Definition
IAU
The official definition of the term planet used by the International Astronomical Union (IAU) only covers the Solar System and thus does not apply to exoplanets.[20][21] The IAU Working Group on Extrasolar Planets issued a position statement containing a working definition of "planet" in 2001 and which was modified in 2003.[22] An exoplanet was defined by the following criteria:
- Objects with
true masses below the limiting mass for thermonuclear fusion of deuterium (currently calculated to be 13 Jupiter masses for objects of solar metallicity) that orbit stars or stellar remnants are "planets" (no matter how they formed). The minimum mass/size required for an extrasolar object to be considered a planet should be the same as that used in the Solar System.- Substellar objects with true masses above the limiting mass for thermonuclear fusion of deuterium are "
brown dwarfs", no matter how they formed or where they are located.- Free-floating objects in young star clusters with masses below the limiting mass for thermonuclear fusion of deuterium are not "planets", but are "sub-brown dwarfs" (or whatever name is most appropriate).
This working definition was amended by the IAU's Commission F2: Exoplanets and the Solar System in August 2018.[23][24] The official working definition of an exoplanet is now as follows:
- Objects with true masses below the limiting mass for thermonuclear fusion of deuterium (currently calculated to be 13 Jupiter masses for objects of solar metallicity) that orbit stars, brown dwarfs or stellar remnants and that have a mass ratio with the central object below the L4/L5 instability (M/Mcentral < 2/(25+√621)) are "planets" (no matter how they formed).
- The minimum mass/size required for an extrasolar object to be considered a planet should be the same as that used in our Solar System.
The IAU noted that this definition could be expected to evolve as knowledge improves.
Alternatives
The IAU's working definition is not always used. One alternate suggestion is that planets should be distinguished from brown dwarfs on the basis of their formation. It is widely thought that giant planets form through core accretion, which may sometimes produce planets with masses above the deuterium fusion threshold;[25][26][12] massive planets of that sort may have already been observed.[27] Brown dwarfs form like stars from the direct gravitational collapse of clouds of gas, and this formation mechanism also produces objects that are below the 13 MJup limit and can be as low as 1 MJup.[28] Objects in this mass range that orbit their stars with wide separations of hundreds or thousands of AU and have large star/object mass ratios likely formed as brown dwarfs; their atmospheres would likely have a composition more similar to their host star than accretion-formed planets, which would contain increased abundances of heavier elements. Most directly imaged planets as of April 2014 are massive and have wide orbits so probably represent the low-mass end of a brown dwarf formation.[29] One study suggests that objects above 10 MJup formed through gravitational instability and should not be thought of as planets.[30]
Also, the 13-Jupiter-mass cutoff does not have a precise physical significance. Deuterium fusion can occur in some objects with a mass below that cutoff.[12] The amount of deuterium fused depends to some extent on the composition of the object.[31] As of 2011, the Extrasolar Planets Encyclopaedia included objects up to 25 Jupiter masses, saying, "The fact that there is no special feature around 13 MJup in the observed mass spectrum reinforces the choice to forget this mass limit".[32] As of 2016, this limit was increased to 60 Jupiter masses[33] based on a study of mass–density relationships.[34] The Exoplanet Data Explorer includes objects up to 24 Jupiter masses with the advisory: "The 13 Jupiter-mass distinction by the IAU Working Group is physically unmotivated for planets with rocky cores, and observationally problematic due to the sin i ambiguity."[35] The NASA Exoplanet Archive includes objects with a mass (or minimum mass) equal to or less than 30 Jupiter masses.[36] Another criterion for separating planets and brown dwarfs, rather than deuterium fusion, formation process or location, is whether the core pressure is dominated by Coulomb pressure or electron degeneracy pressure with the dividing line at around 5 Jupiter masses.[37][38]
Nomenclature
The convention for naming exoplanets is an extension of the system used for designating multiple-star systems as adopted by the International Astronomical Union (IAU). For exoplanets orbiting a single star, the IAU designation is formed by taking the designated or proper name of its parent star, and adding a lower case letter.[40] Letters are given in order of each planet's discovery around the parent star, so that the first planet discovered in a system is designated "b" (the parent star is considered "a") and later planets are given subsequent letters. If several planets in the same system are discovered at the same time, the closest one to the star gets the next letter, followed by the other planets in order of orbital size. A provisional IAU-sanctioned standard exists to accommodate the designation of circumbinary planets. A limited number of exoplanets have IAU-sanctioned proper names. Other naming systems exist.
History of detection
For centuries scientists, philosophers, and science fiction writers suspected that extrasolar planets existed, but there was no way of knowing whether they were real in fact, how common they were, or how similar they might be to the planets of the Solar System. Various detection claims made in the nineteenth century were rejected by astronomers.
The first evidence of a possible exoplanet, orbiting Van Maanen 2, was noted in 1917, but was not recognized as such. The astronomer Walter Sydney Adams, who later became director of the Mount Wilson Observatory, produced a spectrum of the star using Mount Wilson's 60-inch telescope. He interpreted the spectrum to be of an F-type main-sequence star, but it is now thought that such a spectrum could be caused by the residue of a nearby exoplanet that had been pulverized by the gravity of the star, the resulting dust then falling onto the star.[41]
The
On 21 March 2022, the 5000th exoplanet beyond the Solar System was confirmed.[44]
On 11 January 2023, NASA scientists reported the detection of LHS 475 b, an Earth-like exoplanet – and the first exoplanet discovered by the James Webb Space Telescope.[45]
Early speculations
This space we declare to be infinite... In it are an infinity of worlds of the same kind as our own.
— Giordano Bruno (1584)[46]
In the sixteenth century, the Italian philosopher Giordano Bruno, an early supporter of the Copernican theory that Earth and other planets orbit the Sun (heliocentrism), put forward the view that fixed stars are similar to the Sun and are likewise accompanied by planets.
In the eighteenth century, the same possibility was mentioned by
In 1952, more than 40 years before the first
Discredited claims
Claims of exoplanet detections have been made since the nineteenth century. Some of the earliest involve the binary star 70 Ophiuchi. In 1855, William Stephen Jacob at the East India Company's Madras Observatory reported that orbital anomalies made it "highly probable" that there was a "planetary body" in this system.[49] In the 1890s, Thomas J. J. See of the University of Chicago and the United States Naval Observatory stated that the orbital anomalies proved the existence of a dark body in the 70 Ophiuchi system with a 36-year period around one of the stars.[50] However, Forest Ray Moulton published a paper proving that a three-body system with those orbital parameters would be highly unstable.[51]
During the 1950s and 1960s, Peter van de Kamp of Swarthmore College made another prominent series of detection claims, this time for planets orbiting Barnard's Star.[52] Astronomers now generally regard all early reports of detection as erroneous.[53]
In 1991,
Confirmed discoveries
As of 1 March 2024, a total of 5,640 confirmed exoplanets are listed in the Extrasolar Planets Encyclopaedia, including a few that were confirmations of controversial claims from the late 1980s.[1] The first published discovery to receive subsequent confirmation was made in 1988 by the Canadian astronomers Bruce Campbell, G. A. H. Walker, and Stephenson Yang of the University of Victoria and the University of British Columbia.[56] Although they were cautious about claiming a planetary detection, their radial-velocity observations suggested that a planet orbits the star Gamma Cephei. Partly because the observations were at the very limits of instrumental capabilities at the time, astronomers remained skeptical for several years about this and other similar observations. It was thought some of the apparent planets might instead have been brown dwarfs, objects intermediate in mass between planets and stars. In 1990, additional observations were published that supported the existence of the planet orbiting Gamma Cephei,[57] but subsequent work in 1992 again raised serious doubts.[58] Finally, in 2003, improved techniques allowed the planet's existence to be confirmed.[59]
On 9 January 1992, radio astronomers Aleksander Wolszczan and Dale Frail announced the discovery of two planets orbiting the pulsar PSR 1257+12.[42] This discovery was confirmed, and is generally considered to be the first definitive detection of exoplanets. Follow-up observations solidified these results, and confirmation of a third planet in 1994 revived the topic in the popular press.[60] These pulsar planets are thought to have formed from the unusual remnants of the supernova that produced the pulsar, in a second round of planet formation, or else to be the remaining rocky cores of gas giants that somehow survived the supernova and then decayed into their current orbits. As pulsars are aggressive stars, it was considered unlikely at the time that a planet may be able to be formed in their orbit.[61]
In the early 1990s, a group of astronomers led by
On 6 October 1995,
Initially, the most known exoplanets were massive planets that orbited very close to their parent stars. Astronomers were surprised by these "hot Jupiters", because theories of planetary formation had indicated that giant planets should only form at large distances from stars. But eventually more planets of other sorts were found, and it is now clear that hot Jupiters make up the minority of exoplanets.[63] In 1999, Upsilon Andromedae became the first main-sequence star known to have multiple planets.[66] Kepler-16 contains the first discovered planet that orbits a binary main-sequence star system.[67]
On 26 February 2014, NASA announced the discovery of 715 newly verified exoplanets around 305 stars by the
On 23 July 2015, NASA announced Kepler-452b, a near-Earth-size planet orbiting the habitable zone of a G2-type star.[71]
On 6 September 2018, NASA discovered an exoplanet about 145 light years away from Earth in the constellation Virgo.
In January 2020, scientists announced the discovery of
Candidate discoveries
As of January 2020, NASA's
In September 2020, astronomers reported evidence, for the first time, of an
Also in September 2020, astronomers using microlensing techniques reported the detection, for the first time, of an Earth-mass rogue planet unbounded by any star, and free floating in the Milky Way galaxy.[82][83]
Detection methods
Direct imaging
Planets are extremely faint compared to their parent stars. For example, a Sun-like star is about a billion times brighter than the reflected light from any exoplanet orbiting it. It is difficult to detect such a faint light source, and furthermore, the parent star causes a glare that tends to wash it out. It is necessary to block the light from the parent star to reduce the glare while leaving the light from the planet detectable; doing so is a major technical challenge which requires extreme optothermal stability.[84] All exoplanets that have been directly imaged are both large (more massive than Jupiter) and widely separated from their parent stars.
Specially designed direct-imaging instruments such as
Indirect methods
- Transit method
- As a planet orbits a star, the star also moves in its own small orbit around the system's center of mass. Variations in the star's radial velocity—that is, the speed with which it moves towards or away from Earth—can be detected from displacements in the star's spectral lines due to the Doppler effect. Extremely small radial-velocity variations can be observed, of 1 m/s or even somewhat less.[86]
- Transit timing variation (TTV)
- When multiple planets are present, each one slightly perturbs the others' orbits. Small variations in the times of transit for one planet can thus indicate the presence of another planet, which itself may or may not transit. For example, variations in the transits of the planet Kepler-19b suggest the existence of a second planet in the system, the non-transiting Kepler-19c.[87][88]
- Transit duration variation (TDV)
- When a planet orbits multiple stars or if the planet has moons, its transit time can significantly vary per transit. Although no new planets or moons have been discovered with this method, it is used to successfully confirm many transiting circumbinary planets.[89]
- Gravitational microlensing
- Microlensing occurs when the gravitational field of a star acts like a lens, magnifying the light of a distant background star. Planets orbiting the lensing star can cause detectable anomalies in magnification as it varies over time. Unlike most other methods which have a detection bias towards planets with small (or for resolved imaging, large) orbits, the microlensing method is most sensitive to detecting planets around 1–10 AU away from Sun-like stars.
- Astrometry
- Astrometry consists of precisely measuring a star's position in the sky and observing the changes in that position over time. The motion of a star due to the gravitational influence of a planet may be observable. Because the motion is so small, however, this method was not very productive until the 2020s. It has produced only a few confirmed discoveries,[90][91] though it has been successfully used to investigate the properties of planets found in other ways.
- Pulsar timing
- A pulsar (the small, ultradense remnant of a star that has exploded as a supernova) emits radio waves extremely regularly as it rotates. If planets orbit the pulsar, they will cause slight anomalies in the timing of its observed radio pulses. The first confirmed discovery of an extrasolar planet was made using this method. But as of 2011, it has not been very productive; five planets have been detected in this way, around three different pulsars.
- Variable star timing (pulsation frequency)
- Like pulsars, there are some other types of stars which exhibit periodic activity. Deviations from periodicity can sometimes be caused by a planet orbiting it. As of 2013, a few planets have been discovered with this method.[92]
- Reflection/emission modulations
- When a planet orbits very close to a star, it catches a considerable amount of starlight. As the planet orbits the star, the amount of light changes due to planets having phases from Earth's viewpoint or planets glowing more from one side than the other due to temperature differences.[93]
- Relativistic beaming
- Relativistic beaming measures the observed flux from the star due to its motion. The brightness of the star changes as the planet moves closer or further away from its host star.[94]
- Ellipsoidal variations
- Massive planets close to their host stars can slightly deform the shape of the star. This causes the brightness of the star to slightly deviate depending on how it is rotated relative to Earth.[95]
- Polarimetry
- With the polarimetry method, a polarized light reflected off the planet is separated from unpolarized light emitted from the star. No new planets have been discovered with this method, although a few already discovered planets have been detected with this method.[96][97]
- Circumstellar disks
- Disks of space dust surround many stars, thought to originate from collisions among asteroids and comets. The dust can be detected because it absorbs starlight and re-emits it as infrared radiation. Features on the disks may suggest the presence of planets, though this is not considered a definitive detection method.
Formation and evolution
Planets may form within a few to tens (or more) of millions of years of their star forming.[98][99][100][101][102] The planets of the
Planet-hosting stars
There is at least one planet on average per star.[5] About 1 in 5 Sun-like stars[a] have an "Earth-sized"[b] planet in the habitable zone.[113]
Most known exoplanets orbit stars roughly similar to the
Using data from
Some planets orbit one member of a
.Orbital and physical parameters
General features
Color and brightness
In 2013, the color of an exoplanet was determined for the first time. The best-fit
The apparent brightness (apparent magnitude) of a planet depends on how far away the observer is, how reflective the planet is (albedo), and how much light the planet receives from its star, which depends on how far the planet is from the star and how bright the star is. So, a planet with a low albedo that is close to its star can appear brighter than a planet with a high albedo that is far from the star.[124]
The darkest known planet in terms of geometric albedo is TrES-2b, a hot Jupiter that reflects less than 1% of the light from its star, making it less reflective than coal or black acrylic paint. Hot Jupiters are expected to be quite dark due to sodium and potassium in their atmospheres, but it is not known why TrES-2b is so dark—it could be due to an unknown chemical compound.[125][126][127]
For gas giants, geometric albedo generally decreases with increasing metallicity or atmospheric temperature unless there are clouds to modify this effect. Increased cloud-column depth increases the albedo at optical wavelengths, but decreases it at some infrared wavelengths. Optical albedo increases with age, because older planets have higher cloud-column depths. Optical albedo decreases with increasing mass, because higher-mass giant planets have higher surface gravities, which produces lower cloud-column depths. Also, elliptical orbits can cause major fluctuations in atmospheric composition, which can have a significant effect.[128]
There is more thermal emission than reflection at some near-infrared wavelengths for massive and/or young gas giants. So, although optical brightness is fully phase-dependent, this is not always the case in the near infrared.[128]
Temperatures of gas giants reduce over time and with distance from their stars. Lowering the temperature increases optical albedo even without clouds. At a sufficiently low temperature, water clouds form, which further increase optical albedo. At even lower temperatures, ammonia clouds form, resulting in the highest albedos at most optical and near-infrared wavelengths.[128]
Magnetic field
In 2014, a magnetic field around HD 209458 b was inferred from the way hydrogen was evaporating from the planet. It is the first (indirect) detection of a magnetic field on an exoplanet. The magnetic field is estimated to be about one-tenth as strong as Jupiter's.[129][130]
The magnetic fields of exoplanets may be detectable by their
Earth's magnetic field results from its flowing liquid metallic core, but on massive super-Earths with high pressure, different compounds may form which do not match those created under terrestrial conditions. Compounds may form with greater viscosities and high melting temperatures, which could prevent the interiors from separating into different layers and so result in undifferentiated coreless mantles. Forms of magnesium oxide such as MgSi3O12 could be a liquid metal at the pressures and temperatures found in super-Earths and could generate a magnetic field in the mantles of super-Earths.[134][135]
Hot Jupiters have been observed to have a larger radius than expected. This could be caused by the interaction between the stellar wind and the planet's magnetosphere creating an electric current through the planet that heats it up (Joule heating) causing it to expand. The more magnetically active a star is, the greater the stellar wind and the larger the electric current leading to more heating and expansion of the planet. This theory matches the observation that stellar activity is correlated with inflated planetary radii.[136]
In August 2018, scientists announced the transformation of gaseous deuterium into a liquid metallic hydrogen form. This may help researchers better understand giant gas planets, such as Jupiter, Saturn and related exoplanets, since such planets are thought to contain a lot of liquid metallic hydrogen, which may be responsible for their observed powerful magnetic fields.[137][138]
Although scientists previously announced that the magnetic fields of close-in exoplanets may cause increased
In 2019, the strength of the surface magnetic fields of 4 hot Jupiters were estimated and ranged between 20 and 120 gauss compared to Jupiter's surface magnetic field of 4.3 gauss.[140][141]
Plate tectonics
In 2007, two independent teams of researchers came to opposing conclusions about the likelihood of plate tectonics on larger super-Earths[142][143] with one team saying that plate tectonics would be episodic or stagnant[144] and the other team saying that plate tectonics is very likely on super-Earths even if the planet is dry.[145]
If super-Earths have more than 80 times as much water as Earth, then they become
Volcanism
Large surface temperature variations on 55 Cancri e have been attributed to possible volcanic activity releasing large clouds of dust which blanket the planet and block thermal emissions.[148][149]
Rings
The star
The brightness of optical images of
The rings of the Solar System's gas giants are aligned with their planet's equator. However, for exoplanets that orbit close to their star, tidal forces from the star would lead to the outermost rings of a planet being aligned with the planet's orbital plane around the star. A planet's innermost rings would still be aligned with the planet's equator so that if the planet has a tilted rotational axis, then the different alignments between the inner and outer rings would create a warped ring system.[153]
Moons
In December 2013 a candidate exomoon of a rogue planet was announced.[154] On 3 October 2018, evidence suggesting a large exomoon orbiting Kepler-1625b was reported.[155]
Atmospheres
Atmospheres have been detected around several exoplanets. The first to be observed was HD 209458 b in 2001.[157]
As of February 2014, more than fifty
In May 2017, glints of light from
The technology used to determine this may be useful in studying the atmospheres of distant worlds, including those of exoplanets.Comet-like tails
In June 2015, scientists reported that the atmosphere of
Insolation pattern
Surface
Surface composition
Surface features can be distinguished from atmospheric features by comparing emission and reflection spectroscopy with
Surface temperature
Measuring the intensity of the light it receives from its parent star can estimate the temperature of an exoplanet. For example, the planet
Habitability
As more planets are discovered, the field of
Habitable zone
The habitable zone around a star is the region where the temperature is just right to allow liquid water to exist on the surface of a planet; that is, not too close to the star for the water to evaporate and not too far away from the star for the water to freeze. The heat produced by stars varies depending on the size and age of the star, so that the habitable zone can be at different distances for different stars. Also, the atmospheric conditions on the planet influence the planet's ability to retain heat so that the location of the habitable zone is also specific to each type of planet: desert planets (also known as dry planets), with very little water, will have less water vapor in the atmosphere than Earth and so have a reduced greenhouse effect, meaning that a desert planet could maintain oases of water closer to its star than Earth is to the Sun. The lack of water also means there is less ice to reflect heat into space, so the outer edge of desert-planet habitable zones is further out.[177][178] Rocky planets with a thick hydrogen atmosphere could maintain surface water much further out than the Earth–Sun distance.[179] Planets with larger mass have wider habitable zones because gravity reduces the water cloud column depth which reduces the greenhouse effect of water vapor, thus moving the inner edge of the habitable zone closer to the star.[180]
Planetary rotation rate is one of the major factors determining the circulation of the atmosphere and hence the pattern of clouds: slowly rotating planets create thick clouds that reflect more and so can be habitable much closer to their star. Earth with its current atmosphere would be habitable in Venus's orbit, if it had Venus's slow rotation. If Venus lost its water ocean due to a runaway greenhouse effect, it is likely to have had a higher rotation rate in the past. Alternatively, Venus never had an ocean because water vapor was lost to space during its formation [181] and could have had its slow rotation throughout its history.[182]
Tidally locked planets (a.k.a. "eyeball" planets[183]) can be habitable closer to their star than previously thought due to the effect of clouds: at high stellar flux, strong convection produces thick water clouds near the substellar point that greatly increase the planetary albedo and reduce surface temperatures.[184]
Planets in the habitable zones of stars with low metallicity are more habitable for complex life on land than high metallicity stars because the stellar spectrum of high metallicity stars is less likely to cause the formation of ozone thus enabling more ultraviolet rays to reach the planet's surface.[185][186]
Habitable zones have usually been defined in terms of surface temperature, however over half of Earth's biomass is from subsurface microbes,[187] and the temperature increases with depth, so the subsurface can be conducive for microbial life when the surface is frozen and if this is considered, the habitable zone extends much further from the star,[188] even rogue planets could have liquid water at sufficient depths underground.[189] In an earlier era of the universe the temperature of the cosmic microwave background would have allowed any rocky planets that existed to have liquid water on their surface regardless of their distance from a star.[190] Jupiter-like planets might not be habitable, but they could have habitable moons.[191]
Ice ages and snowball states
The outer edge of the habitable zone is where planets are completely frozen, but planets well inside the habitable zone can periodically become frozen. If orbital fluctuations or other causes produce cooling, then this creates more ice, but ice reflects sunlight causing even more cooling, creating a feedback loop until the planet is completely or nearly completely frozen. When the surface is frozen, this stops
Tidal heating
If a planet has an eccentric orbit, then tidal heating can provide another source of energy besides stellar radiation. This means that eccentric planets in the radiative habitable zone can be too hot for liquid water. Tides also circularize orbits over time, so there could be planets in the habitable zone with circular orbits that have no water because they used to have eccentric orbits.[197] Eccentric planets further out than the habitable zone would still have frozen surfaces, but the tidal heating could create a subsurface ocean similar to Europa's.[198] In some planetary systems, such as in the Upsilon Andromedae system, the eccentricity of orbits is maintained or even periodically varied by perturbations from other planets in the system. Tidal heating can cause outgassing from the mantle, contributing to the formation and replenishment of an atmosphere.[199]
Potentially habitable planets
A review in 2015 identified exoplanets
When looking at the nearest terrestrial exoplanet candidates, Proxima Centauri b is about 4.2 light-years away. Its equilibrium temperature is estimated to be −39 °C (234 K).[201]
Earth-size planets
- In November 2013, it was estimated that 22±8% of Sun-like[a] stars in the Milky Way galaxy may have an Earth-sized[b] planet in the habitable[c] zone.[6][113] Assuming 200 billion stars in the Milky Way,[d] that would be 11 billion potentially habitable Earths, rising to 40 billion if red dwarfs are included.[8]
- Kepler-186f, a 1.2-Earth-radius planet in the habitable zone of a red dwarf, was reported in April 2014.
- Proxima Centauri b, a planet in the habitable zone of Proxima Centauri, the nearest known star to the solar system with an estimated minimum mass of 1.27 times the mass of the Earth.
- In February 2013, researchers speculated that up to 6% of small red dwarfs may have Earth-size planets. This suggests that the closest one to the Solar System could be 13 light-years away. The estimated distance increases to 21 light-years when a 95% confidence interval is used.[202] In March 2013, a revised estimate gave an occurrence rate of 50% for Earth-size planets in the habitable zone of red dwarfs.[203]
- At 1.63 times Earth's radius Sun-like star (July 2015).[204]
Planetary system
Exoplanets are often members of planetary systems of multiple planets around a star. The planets interact with each other gravitationally and sometimes form resonant systems where the orbital periods of the planets are in integer ratios. The Kepler-223 system contains four planets in an 8:6:4:3 orbital resonance.[205]
Some hot Jupiters orbit their stars in the opposite direction to their stars' rotation.[206] One proposed explanation is that hot Jupiters tend to form in dense clusters, where perturbations are more common and gravitational capture of planets by neighboring stars is possible.[207]
Search projects
- CoRoT – Mission to look for exoplanets using the transit method.
- Kepler – Mission to look for large numbers of exoplanets using the transit method.
- TESS – To search for new exoplanets; rotating so by the end of its two-year mission it will have observed stars from all over the sky. It is expected to find at least 3,000 new exoplanets.
- .
- ESPRESSO – A rocky planet-finding, and stable spectroscopic observing, spectrograph mounted on ESO's 4 by 8.2m VLT telescope, sited on the levelled summit of Cerro Paranal in the Atacama Desert of northern Chile.
- ANDES – The ArmazoNes High Dispersion Echelle Spectrograph, a planet finding and planet characterisation spectrograph, is expected to be fitted onto ESO's ELT 39.3m telescope. ANDES was formally known as HIRES, which itself was created after a merger of the consortia behind the earlier CODEX (optical high-resolution) and SIMPLE (near-infrared high-resolution) spectrograph concepts.
See also
- Detecting Earth from distant star-based systems
- Lists of exoplanets
- List of coolest exoplanets
- Planets in science fiction (about fictional planets)
- Planetary capture
- Habitable zone for complex life
Notes
- ^ K-type stars.
- ^ a b c For the purpose of this 1 in 5 statistic, Earth-sized means 1–2 Earth radii.
- ^ a b For the purpose of this 1 in 5 statistic, "habitable zone" means the region with 0.25 to 4 times Earth's stellar flux (corresponding to 0.5–2 AU for the Sun).
- ^ a b About 1/4 of stars are GK Sun-like stars. The number of stars in the galaxy is not accurately known, but assuming 200 billion stars in total, the Milky Way would have about 50 billion Sun-like (GK) stars, of which about 1 in 5 (22%) or 11 billion would have Earth-sized planets in the habitable zone. Including red dwarfs would increase this to 40 billion.
References
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- ^ O'Callaghan, Jonthan (23 January 2023). "JWST Heralds a New Dawn for Exoplanet Science – The James Webb Space Telescope is opening an exciting new chapter in the study of exoplanets and the search for life beyond Earth". Scientific American. Retrieved 23 January 2023.
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Further reading
- Boss, Alan (2009). The Crowded Universe: The Search for Living Planets. Basic Books. ISBN 978-0-465-02039-3(Paperback).
- Dorminey, Bruce (2001). ISBN 978-1-4419-2872-6(Paperback).
- Jayawardhana, Ray (2011). Strange New Worlds: The Search for Alien Planets and Life beyond Our Solar System. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. ISBN 978-0-691-14254-8(Hardcover).
- Perryman, Michael (2011). The Exoplanet Handbook. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-76559-6.
- Seager, Sara, ed. (2011). Exoplanets. University of Arizona Press. ISBN 978-0-8165-2945-2.
- Villard, Ray; Cook, Lynette R. (2005). ISBN 978-0-520-23710-0.
- Yaqoob, Tahir (2011). Exoplanets and Alien Solar Systems. New Earth Labs (Education and Outreach). ISBN 978-0-9741689-2-0(Paperback).
- van Dishoeck, Ewine F.; Bergin, Edwin A.; Lis, Dariusz C.; Lunine, Jonathan I. (2014). "Water: From Clouds to Planets". Protostars and Planets VI. p. 835. S2CID 55875067.