Major extrasolar planet discovery, Aug. 31

[chris]

http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewpr.html?pid=14885

Marcy and Butler's team will be announcing the discovery of a 'whole new class' of extrasolar planets on August 31. Any care to speculate (or better, have some inside information) on what they'll be announcing?

--Chris

[Evil Dr Ganymede]

Assuming it's not actual earth-sized planets, or anything to do with this 14 earth mass world that's just been discovered...

I'd guess it's a planet in a multiple star system?

[chris]

I'd guess it's a planet in a multiple star system?

I think we know of some planets in binary star systems where the stars are separated by a very large distance (> 100au). Perhaps the newly discovered planets orbit tight binaries? My guess is that they've found some giant planets in long period, near-circular orbits.

--Chris

[chrisr]

Is there any project in the works that will be able to detect planets as small as the earth? What about actually being able to see these exttasolar planets!?

[Scorpiove]

Hi Chisr, There are some projects for planet hunting going on. I think you should visit the following sites....

Planet Quest
http://planetquest.jpl.nasa.gov/pq_launch_page.html

Terrestrial Planet Finder (Search for Terrestrial planets)
http://planetquest.jpl.nasa.gov/TPF/tpf_index.html

Kepler (Search for Earth like habitable planets)
http://planetquest.jpl.nasa.gov/Kepler/kepler_index.html

Space Interferometry mission (determin distance and position of stars and probe them for Earth like planets)
http://planetquest.jpl.nasa.gov/SIM/sim_index.html

The last two are for bigger planets...

Keck (Measure dust from nearby stars and to directly detect and characterize hot gas giant planets in other solar systems)
http://planetquest.jpl.nasa.gov/Keck/keck_index.html

LBTI (It will study the formation of solar systems and will be capable of directly detecting giant planets outside our solar system.)
http://planetquest.jpl.nasa.gov/lbti/lbti_index.html

Things are bound to get very very exciting with so many projects underway. I can't even wait to see what Nasa announces in their "Major discovery". I love hearing about newly discovered planets no matter the magnitude of the discovery.

[Evil Dr Ganymede]

And here's what the fuss is all about....

http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/e ... 40831.html

Two neptune-sized starhugging planets discovered - one around 55 Cancri (which already has 3 gas giants), the other around Gliese 436.

I guess the Mu Arae discovery stole the US team's thunder a bit though...

[Scorpiove]

Yeah, it seems that the thunder was stolen a bit eh? Still neat to find out that there are more and more being discovered. I can't wait myself for the launch of TPF and Kepler.

[ajtribick]

What, a planet going around 55 Cancri with an even smaller time period? Wouldn't the Jovian world disrupt its orbit?

The number of blinking entries in the SolStation list is getting quite painful...

[symaski62]

http://www.obspm.fr/encycl/55Cnc.html

Code: Select all

"b" "HD 75732"   # Rho Cnc
{
   Texture "gasgiant.*"

   Mass       270     # M.sin(i) = 0.84 jupiters
   Radius     84000

   InfoURL "http://www.obspm.fr/encycl/55Cnc.html"

   EllipticalOrbit {
      Period          0.0401
      SemiMajorAxis   0.115
      Eccentricity    0.02
      ArgOfPericenter 317
      MeanAnomaly     122
   }

   # likely to be in captured synchronous rotation
}

AltSurface "limit of knowledge" "HD 75732/b"
{
   Texture "extrasolar-lok.*"
}


"c" "HD 75732"   # Rho Cnc
{
   Texture "jupiterlike.*"

   Mass       70     # M.sin(i) = 0.21 jupiters
   Radius     56000

   InfoURL "http://www.obspm.fr/encycl/55Cnc.html"

   EllipticalOrbit {
      Period          0.1212
      SemiMajorAxis   0.241
      Eccentricity    0.339
      ArgOfPericenter 279
      MeanAnomaly     67
   }

   # likely to be in captured synchronous rotation
}

AltSurface "limit of knowledge" "HD 75732/c"
{
   Texture "extrasolar-lok.*"
}


"d" "HD 75732"   # Rho Cnc
{
   Texture "jupiterlike.*"

   Mass       1290     # M.sin(i) = 4.05 jupiters
   Radius     70000
   Oblateness 0.01

   InfoURL "http://www.obspm.fr/encycl/55Cnc.html"

   EllipticalOrbit {
      Period          14.6749
      SemiMajorAxis   5.9
      Eccentricity    0.16
      ArgOfPericenter 59
      MeanAnomaly     277
   }

   RotationPeriod  10 # plausible guess
}

AltSurface "limit of knowledge" "HD 75732/d"
{
   Texture "extrasolar-lok.*"
}


NEW 55 Cnc "e"

[granthutchison]

8O NEW 55 Cnc "e"

You really don't need to keep doing that. I update promptly.

I committed the updated extrasolar.ssc (Rho Cnc e and GJ 436 b) to the CVS tree a couple of hours ago. At present you'll need to search for GJ 436 under its Hip number, 57087, but I've also committed an update to starnames.dat which adds "GJ 436" as a searchable option.

Grant

[symaski62]

merci

[Evil Dr Ganymede]

What, a planet going around 55 Cancri with an even smaller time period? Wouldn't the Jovian world disrupt its orbit?

Beats me. I've given up trying to figure out how planetary systems form, it's all getting ridiculously complicated now .

The number of blinking entries in the SolStation list is getting quite painful...

You notice that too, eh?

[eburacum45]

This is an image of 55 Cancri e as seen in my version- I have substituted this really nice tidally locked texture for the grey limit-of-knowledge extrasolar-lok texture;

this is one of the textures that is supplied with the Mostly Harmless solar system generator-
it looks strange when it is in flat projection, but very effective as a hot locked planet...




Incidentally, where does one download all the stars for these new extrasolars?

[granthutchison]

Incidentally, where does one download all the stars for these new extrasolars?

http://www.lns.cornell.edu/~seb/celestia/hutchison/missing-stars.html

Grant

[eburacum]

Thank you.

[danielj]

Which Orion?s Arm packet has this texture?

quote="eburacum45"]This is an image of 55 Cancri e as seen in my version- I have substituted this really nice tidally locked texture for the grey limit-of-knowledge extrasolar-lok texture;

this is one of the textures that is supplied with the Mostly Harmless solar system generator-
it looks strange when it is in flat projection, but very effective as a hot locked planet...




Incidentally, where does one download all the stars for these new extrasolars?[/quote]

[ajtribick]

From hot-Neptunes to hot-Saturns... HD 88133

These exoplanets just keep coming...

[granthutchison]

From hot-Neptunes to hot-Saturns... HD 88133

Oops. That one went on to the CVS tree last night (UK time) ... sorry I didn't post an update bulletin at the time.

Grant

[Guest]

Which Orion?s Arm packet has this texture?

It's not an OA texture, it is from Marc Griffith's Mostly Harmless solar system generator; the generator makes a collection of .ssc files, and picks a texture, created by one of several texture artists, to go with them.

This generator has two or three tidally locked textures- all very strange to look at, but effective in practice.

I can't find the exact link for downloading the generator though- any one know it?

[granthutchison]

I can't find the exact link for downloading the generator though- any one know it?

http://home.comcast.net/%7Ebrons/NerdCorner/StarGen/StarGen.html?

Grant