TheHuntForDistanceWorlds

July 25, 2021

How to Hunt for Distant Worlds

Since the discovery of the first planet orbiting a Sun-like star in 1995, more than 4,000 exoplanets have been found. These widespread planetary systems confirm that our solar system is just one of many in our Milky Way galaxy. The discovery of such systems provided intriguing insights, challenging our perspectives about how planetary systems form and evolve. But how do astronomers search for these exoplanets and what can we find out about them? Join Dr. Rickman as she describes the scientific hunt for these distant worlds.


The lecture starts at about 13:30 minutes in after all the news updates.

Host: Frank Summers, Space Telescope Science Institute Recorded live on Tuesday, June 1, 2021 More information: www.stsci.edu/public-lectures

Very interesting lecture, some of this has been talked about before however it is always good to listen to different explanations of the same topics. The upcoming JWST is hopefully going to open up a lot more discoveries.

The lecture makes reference to the discovery of the moons around Jupiter with the first telescope. Which really puts in to context how quickly things have moved on. First exoplanet was found in 1992, but only recently has the number found increased.

Links at the end to the zooniverse project, two of these projects are to do with searching for exo-planets so this gives citizens a chance to take part (and get cited) in real research.