Is another Earth out there?
(麻豆淫院Org.com) -- In the search for another Earth, "the stage is only just coming into view" as new mega-telescopes come online, but there is plenty of room for amateurs with less sophisticated telescopes to help in the planet hunt, too, according to noted astronomer Greg Laughlin, who spoke at the University of Delaware on Wednesday, Oct. 19.
Laughlin, professor and chair of the astronomy department at the University of California Santa Cruz, has been involved in the discovery of a number of plants outside our solar system, called extrasolar planets or 鈥渆xoplanets.鈥�
He shared some of his findings and the science behind them with an audience of more than 200 at the Harcourt C. 鈥淎ce鈥� Vernon Memorial Lecture at UD鈥檚 Clayton Hall Conference Center.
More than 500 exoplanets have been detected by observers so far -- and the discoveries have been made by both professional astronomers and amateur observers, Laughlin said. However, many of the new planets discovered exhibit eccentric elliptical orbits 鈥渨ithout much sideways momentum鈥� compared to the 鈥渁lmost perfect circle鈥� of Earth鈥檚 orbit.
鈥淚t鈥檚 extremely common for planets to be orbiting nearby stars, and our solar system is just one architecture out there,鈥� Laughlin said. 鈥淪trange ones are the norm.鈥�
One of the discoveries Laughlin has been involved in, HD149026b, has an orbital period of 2.5 days, or one weekend long.
鈥淲hat鈥檚 amazing is, you鈥檇 think it would take the very best telescopes in the world, but a friend, Ron Bissinger, the CEO of a biotech company, observed it in his backyard observatory,鈥� Laughlin noted.
Another planet, HD80606b, takes 111 days to orbit its sun-like star. But it ventures so close to its star that the planet heats up into a glowing fiery-red orb.
Laughlin periodically reminded the audience that some of the mysteries of the heavens are within our reach.
To illustrate his point, he showed a photograph of the sky with a crescent moon and two power lines visible off to one side. Toward the top edge of the photo was a white dot 鈥� the planet Venus. As he enlarged it to view the individual pixels, the smudgy dot appeared to have something in front of it, 鈥渁nd it鈥檚 completely not clear what it is,鈥� Laughlin said.
Laughlin compared his view of Venus taken with a 5-megapixel camera to the view that Galileo saw in the early 1600s, as the explorer first used a telescope to look at objects in the sky. Galileo鈥檚 observations showed that Venus was orbiting the sun and not the Earth because he could see the changing phases of the planet.
Yet the whole sense that we鈥檙e on a planet in space was only brought home a few decades ago by the Apollo astronauts. 鈥淚t wasn鈥檛 till the astronauts left Earth鈥檚 orbit that it sunk in that we as a species were on a planet hanging in space,鈥� Laughlin noted.
Now, with sophisticated telescopes like NASA鈥檚 Kepler and the James Webb Space Telescope (set to launch in 2018), humanity can continue with a quest that Christiaan Huygens, began in the late 1600s, when he was the first to look for exoplanets.
Among the gas giants, the super-hot planets with short-period orbits, and ice giants, observers hope to find habitable, terrestrial planets.
鈥淲e鈥檙e now down to where we can detect Earth-like worlds,鈥� Laughlin said.
鈥淚t鈥檚 opening a new chapter in our intellectual development as a species -- the realization that other planets like ours are out there orbiting the stars,鈥� he noted. 鈥淭ens of billions of stars in the galaxy could harbor these planets.鈥�
The Transit Search Project, which Laughlin leads, is seeking public participants to help with the extrasolar planet search. The project鈥檚 website is .
Provided by University of Delaware
