Astronomers Create Catalog of Exotic Exoplanets
May 24, 2024 by News Staff
Created as part of the TESS-Keck Survey, the new catalog includes 126 strange planets beyond our Solar System, from rare worlds with extreme environments to ones that could possibly support life as we know it.
“Relatively few of the previously known exoplanets have a measurement of both the mass and the radius,” said University of California, Riverside’s Professor Stephen Kane, principal investigator of the TESS-Keck Survey and co-author of a paper published in the Astrophysical Journal Supplement.
“The combination of these measurements tells us what the planets could be made of and how they formed.”
“With this information, we can begin to answer questions about where our Solar System fits in to the grand tapestry of other planetary systems.”
Professor Kane and his colleagues analyzed more than 13,000 radial velocity (RV) measurements to calculate the masses of 120 confirmed planets, plus six candidate planets, spread out over the northern sky.
“These RV measurements let astronomers detect and learn the properties of these exoplanetary systems,” said University of Kansas astrophysicist Ian Crossfield.
“When we see a star wobbling regularly back and forth, we can infer the presence of an orbiting planet and measure the planet’s mass.”
Several planets in the TESS-Keck Survey stand out as touchstones for deepening astronomers’ understanding of the diverse ways planets form and evolve.
More:
https://www.sci.news/astronomy/tess-keck-survey-catalog-12963.html