x4 x1

3
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3
3
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targets. 13 time. 4
Paris Observatory B, but for a shorter
sion techniques to reach such distant
ES-001
No. 8 Engineers are already working on propul- too will lens the star
Answers on overleaf orbits the star F, it
Grażyna Stasińska exoplanets to take close-up images.
light. If a planet P
Jean Schneider launched towards the nearest which magnifies the
F
possibly, interstellar probes will be P
‘gravitational lens’
detailed maps of planets. And creates a
Solar System? B
space interferometers will make in front of a star B, it
planet of the In the more distant future, huge When a star F passes
Microlensing:
represents a signs of life on exoplanets by 2050.
images being designed at NASA to detect eclipse.
Which of these in diameter (LUVOIR, Habex) are produces a small
Exoplanets Large Space telescopes 8 to18m of a star it
passes in front
JWST will also do direct imaging.
If a planet
Exoplanets Quiz planets by the transit method. The Transits:
Ariel, will be launched to detect
including Cheops, JWST, Plato and in its spectrum (see TUIMPs 2 and 10).
of the stars. Satellite telecopes detected by the displacement of the lines
by imaging and velocity variations the star around the center of mass is
from the Earth to detect exoplanets The motion of
center of mass.
diameter telescopes will operate
their common
Within the next 10 years, 30 to 40m
the star orbit
The planet and
The Universe in my pocket The future
Dynamical methods :
2y

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3
The satellite CoRoT Plato, the future
A brief history of discoveries European exoplanet Indirect methods of discovery
discovered 36
exoplanets. 600 The first discoveries of exoplanets were hunter, to be launched
made from the ground with the radial in 2026. It will
The first detections of exoplanets used
candidates are still
velocity method using high-precision observe hundreds of the effects of the planet on its star (see
being examined.
spectrographs. HD114762b was the thousands of stars, opposite page), allowing the derivation
The Kepler mission first planet discovered, in1989. In looking for planets of many planetary properties.
observed 530,000 1992, 3 planets were found around a using the transit technique. • With dynamical methods, by
stars, finding pulsar. Then the number of detections studying the variations of the radial
An artist’s impression
2500 exoplanets
skyrocketed. As of 2019, over 800 of the future European velocity of the star, we obtain the
so far. Another
2500 candidates
planets and 600 multi-planet systems Extremely Large size and eccentricity of the orbit, the
have been found using this method. Telescope, which will period of revolution and a lower limit
await analysis.
begin operation in Chile on the mass of a planet. The true
The European satellite In 2006 the French-ESA satellite
in 2025. It will gather value of the mass and the orbit
Gaia, launched in 2013, CoRoT was launched, followed in 2009 13 times more light
will operate until 2022. by the NASA Space Telescope Kepler. than the largest existing telescopes and orientation are derived from the
It will study the position Both used the transit method. CoRoT produce images 16 times sharper than change in position of the star with
and motion of over one was the first to detect a rocky planet. those from the Hubble Space Telescope. respect to nearby stars (astrometry).
billion stars with Kepler discovered thousands of planets. • With the transit method, we obtain
exquisite precision. The hypertelescope
90 planets were found by microlensing, the size of the planet from the depth of
The masses (with project by A. Labeyrie.
and 100 planets were found by direct the light curve during the eclipse and the
respect to the Earth) A future, very large
versus the year length imaging from Earth. interferometer in period of revolution from the time
(in terrestrial days) for Gaia will provide astrometry and Space, for the between eclipses.
all known exoplanets as transit • With microlensing we obtain the
velocity
proper motions for over 1 billion cartography of
of February 2019. (data imaging stars. It should detect thousands of exoplanets with a resolution of 100 m. mass of the planet and its distance to
from exoplanet.eu). 5
8 new planets. 9 12 the star.
+
+

7 10 11 6
indirect methods. Credit: Chauvin et al.
however, can only be obtained by red one. packed around their sun. shown here in white.
The size and mass of the planet, orange one and a • Systems of planets very tightly faint, low-mass star
stars: an dwarf’ star 2M1207, a
is, the length of its day. • Planets with two suns
around two It orbits the ‘brown
planet gives its rotation period, that which revolves summer). the ESO VLT in 2004.
Photometric monitoring of the Kepler-413b, seasons (-100°C in winter, +100°C in exoplanet, taken at
and weather. The planet called Super-Earths, with extreme The first image of an
atmosphere as well as its climate • Planets twice as big as the Earth, Credit: Lagrange et al.
the molecular composition of its seasons. it orbits its star.
produces extreme
• Evaporating planets
Spectroscopy of the planet reveals Beta Pictoris b as
orbit which to one year for the Earth) the planet
images we can determine the full orbit. its highly eccentric star in only a few days (as compared the motion of
very fruitful, because with several Kepler-432b, with in Chile. It shows
more than 1000°C that orbit their
Direct detection, when possible, is planet Large Telescope
• Planets with temperatures of
technique called coronography. G. Thimm of the the ESO Very
representation by Solar System: images taken at
carefully mask the star by a
An artistic discovered that do not exist in the Sequence of
times brighter. Thus, we need to
Many strange planets have been
stars, which are at least 10 million telescope in Hawaii.
and dim and lie very close to their CoRoT-7 b 3000 await confirmation. the Gemini North
difficult because planets are small Super-Earth have been confirmed while more than in infrared light with
very hot As of 2019, more than 4000 planets using coronography
Direct detection of an exoplanet is scale) of the discovered in 2008
view (not to The diversity of worlds the star HR 8799,
Direct methods of discovery An imaginary Two planets around
The idea that ‘other worlds’ can exist An artist’s view of Why search for exoplanets ?
beyond our Solar System was suggested 51 Pegasi b The Universe in my pocket No. 8
by the Greek philosopher Epicure, 2,300 a giant planet with a There are about 100,000,000,000
years ago. ‘year’ of only 4 days. This booklet was written in 2019 by Jean stars in our Galaxy, the Milky Way.
In 1584 the philosopher Giordano Bruno Schneider and Grażyna Stasińska from How many exoplanets – planets
argued that stars are suns, just like ours. Paris Observatory (France). outside of the Solar System – do we
In the XVIIth and XVIIIth centuries, many
Nr 1
An artist’s view of expect to exist? Why are some
scientists and philosophers, such as Charles HD 114762 b, stars surrounded by planets? How
Huygens and Immanuel Kant, further the first
developed the concept of other worlds. Cover image: This picture illustrates the
diverse are planetary systems?
exoplanet to be Does this diversity tell us something
discovered, in idea that rocky worlds may be both plentiful
A drawing and highly diverse in the Universe (credit about the process of planet
representing ‘the 1989.
plurality of worlds’ as JPL). All the images of exoplanets and of formation? These are some of the
imagined by the An image of Jupiter satellites in this booklet are artist’s many questions that motivate the
French writer taken by the orbiter depictions . Credits: NASA, ESA and ESO. study of exoplanets.
Fontenelle in 1686. Juno and processed
A color version of an by citizen scientist Some exoplanets may have the
engraving from a book David Marriott. necessary physical conditions
published in 1888 by Camille NASA / JPL-Caltech / SwRI / To learn more about this
Flammarion. It depicts a MSSS / Marriott (amount and quality of light from the
series and about the topics
pilgrim discovering another presented in this booklet, star, temperature, atmospheric
world. composition) for the existence of
An artist’s view please visit
The first attempts by astronomers to of Kepler-16b, a http://www.tuimp.org complex organic chemistry and
detect planets around other stars were in planet orbiting perhaps for the development of Life
the late1930s, but until 1989 there were two stars. (which may be quite different from
only false alarms. 2 TUIMP Creative Commons Life on Earth). 3