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An exoplanet, or extrasolar planet, is a planet in orbit around another star. The first of such objects was discovered in 1992 and over 1,800 exoplanets have been identified today (November 2014). Although a few extrasolar plants have been discovered by direct imaging, because an exoplanet’s reflected visible light is (in the case of a system comparable to ours) ∼10−9times weaker than the stellar flux, indirect methods such as Dopple velocitmetry (radial velocity technique), transit photometry, microlensing, etc. have been used to detect these objects. Astrometry was first tried without success, as the available instrumental means were not sensitive enough to detect such small motions. The velocimetry technique was later successfully used, and this has led to the discovery of close to 600 exoplanets. The transit photometry technique has especially been successful in the past few years where CoRoT and Kepler space telescopes provided a...
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References and Further Reading
Beaulieu J-P et al (2006) Discovery of a cool planet of 5.5 Earth masses through gravitational lensing. Nature 439:437–440
Brown M, Charbonneau D, Gilliland D et al (2001) Hubble space telescope time-series photometry of the transiting planet of HD209458. Astrophys J 552:699–709
Casoli F, Encrenaz T (2007) The new worlds – extrasolar planets. Springer/Praxis, New York
Charbonneau D, Brown TM, Latham DW, Mayor M (2000) Detection of planetary transit across a sun-like star. Astrophys J 529:L45–L48
Charbonneau D, Brown T, Burrows A, Laughlin G (2006) When extrasolar planets transit their parent stars. Protostars and Planets V. University of Arizona Press. http://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0603376
Chauvin GL, Lagrange AM, Dumas AM et al (2005) Giant planet companion to 2MASSW 1207334–393254. Astron Astrophys 438:L25–L28
Marcy G et al (2005) Observed properties of exoplanets: masses, orbits and metallicities. Prog Theor Phys Suppl 158:24–42
Mayor M, Queloz D (1995) A Jupiter-mass companion to a solar-type star. Nature 378:355–359
Ollivier M, Encrenaz T, Roques F, Selsis F, Casoli F (2009) Planetary systems: detection, formation, habitability of extrasolar planets. Springer, New York
Schneider J (2010) Interactive extrasolar planets catalog. In: The encyclopaedia of extrasolar planets. http://exoplanets.eu
Wolszczan A, Frail DA (2003) A planetary system around the millisecond pulsar PSR1257+12. Nature 355(6356):145–147
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Encrenaz, T., Haghighipour, N. (2014). Exoplanet, Detection and Characterization. In: Amils, R., et al. Encyclopedia of Astrobiology. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-27833-4_553-5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-27833-4_553-5
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Exoplanet, Detection, and Characterization- Published:
- 17 February 2023
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-27833-4_553-6
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Exoplanet, Detection and Characterization- Published:
- 16 April 2015
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-27833-4_553-5