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4 votes
2 answers
227 views

Is it possible that only one hemisphere of a planet has an atmosphere?

Suppose there is a tidally locked planet orbiting a star. The planet's surface consists of a global ocean, that is, liquid water. At the inner hemisphere the temperature is so high that the water is ...
26 votes
4 answers
3k views

How do the “hot Jupiter” planets get so close to their host star?

Many of the extrasolar planets to date are Jovian sized planets that orbit very very close to their parent star. Traditional planetary formation models say that it is extremely unlikely (if not ...
9 votes
3 answers
1k views

Why is planet CFBDSIR2149-0403 hot?

According to a BBC report Astronomers have spotted a "rogue planet" - wandering the cosmos without a star to orbit - 100 light-years away. ... The proximity of the new rogue planet has ...
1 vote
2 answers
396 views

Is there anyone calculate the probability of extrasolar planets?

After reading an recent news "Stargazers capture first picture of a planet with two suns – just like Luke Skywalker’s home planet of Tatooine in Star Wars", I am thinking that: can we calculate the ...
5 votes
1 answer
135 views

Is there an established standard for naming exoplanets?

I understand that exoplanets are named by adding a lowercase letter to the a designation of the planet's parent star or stellar system, beginning with 'b' (the star itself is 'a') in order of ...
9 votes
3 answers
5k views

Are we capable of discovering planets in the Andromeda galaxy?

I just watched this SpaceRip video on YouTube which shows pictures taken by Hubble while looking into the disk of the Andromeda galaxy to study a certain type of variable star. It occurred to me that ...
9 votes
2 answers
299 views

Word for the star around which an exoplanet orbits:

Is there accepted nomenclature for the star around which a particular exoplanet orbits? Meaning, if I were to say "The exoplanet blah blah blah's (noun)" what noun would I put there? Sun? Star? ...
8 votes
3 answers
359 views

Is a rogue 'exoplanet' classed as a exoplanet?

Given that the term planet strictly (according to the IAU) refers to a body around the sun, rogue planets can't be called that, so I assume they must be called rogue exoplanets? But do they even ...
4 votes
1 answer
536 views

What day/night cycles, climate and seasons would experience Alpha Centauri Bb inhabitants?

Alpha Centauri Bb is an exoplanet orbiting Alpha Centauri B. It is asserted that given the close distance to the star the planet should be tidally locked. The orbiting period of the planet is about ...
11 votes
1 answer
629 views

How many earth-sized planets have been discovered outside the solar system?

How many earth-sized planets have been discovered outside our solar system? Is there a combined registry of them anywhere? Where might I look for more information?
16 votes
3 answers
2k views

What is the probability that a star of a given spectral type will have planets?

There is a lot of new data from the various extrasolar planet projects including NASA's Kepler mission on extra-solar planets. Based on our current data what is the probability that a star of each of ...
3 votes
1 answer
103 views

What could this very dark planet be made of?

I was reading about the planet TrES-2b which is less reflective than charcoal. What could possibly be its composition?
4 votes
1 answer
45 views

Contents page of Exoplanets book

I can't find an online contents page for the book Exoplanets, edited by Sara Seager, University of Arizona Press, 2011. Can you point to such a page, or say what the contents page says?
14 votes
2 answers
2k views

What percent of planets are in the position that they could be viewed edge-on from Earth? (and thus able to undergo transits)

Star number 12644769 from the Kepler Input Catalog was identified as an eclipsing binary with a 41-day period, from the detection of its mutual eclipses (9). Eclipses occur because the orbital ...
4 votes
2 answers
52 views

Is it easier to learn more about the seasonal changes in an exoplanet's atmosphere when the exoplanet orbits a binary star system?

From a recent ScienceDaily article, we have this... Scientists detected the new planet in the Kepler-16 system, a pair of orbiting stars that eclipse each other from our vantage point on Earth. When ...
7 votes
0 answers
113 views

Are there certain alignments in planetary orbits that create interesting effects in the moons or planets? [closed]

We have some interesting examples such as Mercury's perihelion The planet Mercury is especially susceptible to Jupiter's influence because of a small celestial coincidence: Mercury's perihelion, ...
3 votes
2 answers
218 views

Is angular resolution important when we want the spectra of an Earth-like exoplanet?

Right now, our resolution + light gathering power are still far too low to take direct images of exoplanets, so we're limited to subtracting the planet spectra from the parent star spectra when the ...
0 votes
2 answers
92 views

Study of exoplanets reaching saturation point [closed]

In recent exoplanet meeting The Next 40 Years of Exoplanets, it was mentioned a few times that the field/topic is becoming saturated. In what ways is it becoming saturated, and can you see the effect ...
7 votes
1 answer
1k views

Stability of moons around tidally locked exoplanets

Can someone send me pointers to work (either theoretical or simulations) showing (in)stability of satellite orbits around tidally locked exoplanets? I want to know firstly if satellite orbits can ...
2 votes
1 answer
38 views

How can we be sure that liquid iron/titanium droplets can form around particulates on hot Jupiters - just as they do on Earth and Venus?

I know that we have some solar system analogs. But is there a limit to it?
3 votes
1 answer
79 views

Is CO2 really a potent greenhouse gas for planets around M dwarfs?

The thing with global warming is that it absorbs infrared (IR) radiation from the planet and reradiates much of it back to the planet (whereas the Sun's peak flux is in the visible region, that is ...
7 votes
1 answer
332 views

How are exoplanets confirmed?

In reference to the Kepler 22b news: The Kepler team had to wait for three passes of the planet before upping its status from "candidate" to "confirmed". This is possible because the planet has ...

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