Lecture 46: ExoPlanets - Planets around Other Stars
Are there planets around other stars? Are there Earth-like planets\naround other stars? Do any of those harbor life? Intelligent life?\nWe'd like to know the answers to all of these questions, and in recent\nyears we've made great progress towards at least answering the first. \nTo date, more than 200 planets have been found around other stars, most in the\ninterstellar neighborhood of the Sun, but a few at great distance. This\nlecture reviews the search for ExoPlanets, discussing the successful\nDoppler Wobble, Transit, and Microlensing techniques. What we have\nfound so far are very suprising systems, especially Jupiter-size or\nbigger planets orbiting very close (few hundredths of an AU) from their\nparent stars. The existance of a significant population of so-called\n"Hot Jupiters" may be telling us that planetary migration can be much\nmore extreme that we saw in our own Solar System, or that these\nplanetary system formed in a very different way than ours. It seems\nappropriate to end this class with more questions than answers, but\nthat's where the science becomes most exciting. Recorded 2006 Dec 1 in\n100 Stillman Hall on the Columbus campus of The Ohio State University.