Compare and contrast the four-planet detection techniques
described during lectures. Use labelled diagrams and equations
relevant to...
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Physics
Compare and contrast the four-planet detection techniquesdescribed during lectures. Use labelled diagrams and equationsrelevant to each technique to illustrate and support yourstatements. The methods are: Transit detection, Radial velocitymethod, direct imaging and microlensing
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Transit detection While the radialvelocity method provides information about a planets mass thephotometric method can determine the planets radius If a planetcrosses transits in front of its parent stars disk then theobserved visual brightness of the star drops by a small amountdepending on the relative sizes of the star and the planetThis method has two major disadvantages First planetarytransits are observable only when the planets orbit happens to beperfectly aligned from the astronomers vantage point Theprobability of a planetary orbital plane being directly on thelineofsight to a star is the ratio of the diameter of the star tothe diameter of the orbit in small stars the radius of the planetis also an important factor About 10 of planets with smallorbits have such an alignment and the fraction decreases forplanets with larger orbits For a planet orbiting a Sunsized starat 1 AU the probability of a random alignment producing a transitis 047 Therefore the method cannot guarantee that anyparticular star is not a host to planets However by scanninglarge areas of the sky containing thousands or even hundreds ofthousands of stars at once transit surveys can find moreextrasolar planets than the radialvelocity methodThe second disadvantage of this method is a high rate of falsedetections A 2012 study found that the
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