Other
Scientific paper
Sep 1996
adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=1996dps....28.1208d&link_type=abstract
American Astronomical Society, DPS meeting #28, #12.08; Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, Vol. 28, p.1112
Other
2
Scientific paper
Current thinking on the formation of planetary systems is in a state of flux following the recent discoveries of over a dozen extrasolar planets, including brown dwarves, Jovian-mass planets in close orbits, and planets of pulsars. It is important to characterize the architecture of new planetary systems. The transit method for detecting planets of other stars relies on the dimming of the star as a planet passes in front of it. A wide-field space telescope monitoring many stars simultaneously (such as the proposed Kepler spacecraft, formerly FRESIP) can readily detect small inner planets. However, it is unlikely to observe transits of outer planets. Massive outer planets could be detected indirectly, though, through their perturbations of the transits of inner planets. For example, yearly transits of the Earth across the Sun last up to ~ 13 hours as seen from afar. Perturbations by Jupiter alter the duration of these events by about a second, but they change the timing of these transits by about a minute. For comparison, the massive planets of pulsar PSR1257+12 alter each other's orbital periods by ~ 10(3) seconds (Rasio et al., Nature 355, 325--326, 1992). Their interaction is stronger because those planets are much closer together, and their orbital periods are nearly in the ratio of 3:2. The time resolution of the Kepler instrument is also on the order of 15 minutes. Thus it is about an order of magnitude short of detecting Jupiter-type planets of other stars, but is capable of indirectly detecting multiple planets in some of the novel systems seen recently.
Borucki William. J.
Dobrovolskis Anthony R.
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