Astronomy Scholar in Canada Discovers 17 Exoplanets New to Science
By combing by means of knowledge collected by NASA’s planet-hunting Kepler area telescope, College of British Columbia astronomy PhD candidate Michelle Kunimoto found proof of a powerful 17 new exoplanets – together with a roughly Earth-sized world discovered within the “liveable zone”, the area round a star the place liquid water may exist.
“This planet is a few thousand mild years away, so we’re not getting there anytime quickly!” Kunimoto stated in a press release. “However this can be a actually thrilling discover, since there have solely been 15 small, confirmed planets within the Liveable Zone present in Kepler knowledge to date.”
Kunimoto used the “transit technique” to search out the planets, one of the broadly used planet-hunting strategies.
“Each time a planet passes in entrance of a star, it blocks a portion of that star’s mild and causes a brief lower within the star’s brightness,” she defined. “By discovering these dips, often known as transits, you can begin to piece collectively details about the planet, resembling its dimension and the way lengthy it takes to orbit.”
Sizes of the brand new planets, in comparison with Mars, Earth, and Neptune, with KIC-7340288 b in inexperienced. (Michelle Kunimoto)
The Earth-like planet is about 1.5 occasions the dimensions of our personal planet, and has an orbit simply bigger than Mercury’s. Nevertheless it solely will get a few third of the sunshine that Earth will get from the Solar.
Kunimoto and her PhD supervisor Jaymie Matthews are excited to search out extra planets within the liveable zone.
“What number of Earth-like planets are there? Keep tuned,” stated Matthews.
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