The very idea of planets orbiting around stars would have shattered the views of many people throughout history. After the Copernican revolution taught us that the Earth is not at the center of the universe but rather planets orbits the Sun opened up the possibility that planets might also orbit other stars. About two decades ago, a new scientific revolution began with the first discoveries of planets orbiting around other stars, called exoplanets. An exoplanet, is any planet that orbits a star other than the Sun. Thousands have been discovered in the past twenty years, mostly with the NASA’s Kepler space Telescope, exoplanets of all sizes, from bigger than Jupiter to smaller than Earth. Just like the Solar System, exoplanets can orbit their
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An internet website called Planet Hunters has launched a program that enlists the public's help to search data obtained from the NASA's Keplers telescope in hopes to observe any characteristic drop in light due to an orbiting exoplanets passing in front of their parent stars. Planet Hunters has successfully found one, called Planet Kepler-90h making it the third confirmed exoplanet discovered. This planetary system already had six confirmed exoplanets, but the discovery of the seventh by Planet Hunters volunteers made it the most populous planetary system known, apart from the Solar …show more content…
The habitable zone is the region around a star in which planets could potentially have surface temperatures at which liquid water could exist. In order to assess the habitability of a planet there are several requirements that need to be met for example, the planet parameters which include mass and radius, the planetary atmospheric composition, orbital properties, and stellar parameters. Carabrea states that, “we have a relatively large uncertainty in the stellar parameters.” there is little information on the planets mass, radius and effective temperature. Carabra also explains that since Kepler-90 is about 10% larger than the sun and has a surface temperature of 6000K, meaning that planets like Kepler-90h with have temperature between 240 and 330 K, and for rocky earth like planets with an Earth like atmospheric condition, this would make it
An internet website called Planet Hunters has launched a program that enlists the public's help to search data obtained from the NASA's Keplers telescope in hopes to observe any characteristic drop in light due to an orbiting exoplanets passing in front of their parent stars. Planet Hunters has successfully found one, called Planet Kepler-90h making it the third confirmed exoplanet discovered. This planetary system already had six confirmed exoplanets, but the discovery of the seventh by Planet Hunters volunteers made it the most populous planetary system known, apart from the Solar …show more content…
The habitable zone is the region around a star in which planets could potentially have surface temperatures at which liquid water could exist. In order to assess the habitability of a planet there are several requirements that need to be met for example, the planet parameters which include mass and radius, the planetary atmospheric composition, orbital properties, and stellar parameters. Carabrea states that, “we have a relatively large uncertainty in the stellar parameters.” there is little information on the planets mass, radius and effective temperature. Carabra also explains that since Kepler-90 is about 10% larger than the sun and has a surface temperature of 6000K, meaning that planets like Kepler-90h with have temperature between 240 and 330 K, and for rocky earth like planets with an Earth like atmospheric condition, this would make it