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Exoplanetary Scratchpad

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Planets by Address Web Pages[]

Planets by Address In the News[]

Sample (Year)[]

Planets by Address[]

  • Sirius System - Sirius is also known as Alpha Canis Majoris and Gliese 244. The brightest star in the sky. A hot blue-white main sequence star with a white dwarf (the "pup") orbiting it. Orbit distance varies between 8.1 and 31.5 ly and takes 50 years to navigate. The habitable zone of Star A is centered 4.25 AU from the star and may be disrupted due to the presence of Star B. Long thought to be a part of the Ursa Major Moving Group (also called the "Sirius Group"), it was found to be too young to be a member and not heading in the right direction. The brightest star within a large distance from the Sun. Star B is about the same mass as the Sun, but is almost the same size as the Earth. It may have evolved from a 5 solar massed B-type main sequence star. It is the nearest and first discovered white dwarf star. Dust has been detected from the system, probably from material sluffed off from Star B. A search in 2008 using high contrast imaging for planets within 10 Jupiter masses within 25 AU of the binary star turned up negative.
    • (8) Solar System - Our home star system. Contains 4 terrestrial planets, 4 gas giant planets, several dwarf planets, an asteroid belt, and a kuiper belt, around a G-Class yellow dwarf star. Contains the only known habitable planet, Earth.
    • (1) Alpha Centauri System - Alpha Centauri is also known as Rigil Kentaurus. A is also known as HD 128620 and HR 5459, B is HD 128621 and HR 5460, and C is Proxima Centauri. It is the nearest star system to the Sun. Contains a yellow dwarf star a little bigger than the Sun and an orange star a little smaller orbiting each other orbiting each other about the distance Uranus is from the Sun (varies from Saturn like to Neptune like), as well as a distant Red Dwarf companion Proxima that may or may not be orbiting the other two.

    Stellar fingerprinting suggests a high probability that a planet orbits star A, due to dearth of Iron around star. Russian astronomers announced the detection of a second planet orbiting the binary pair at 80 AU with a 100 year period, which appears to be false. The stars in the system will become markedly closer together in 2016, making observations much more difficult and one follow up failed to find it. The system is the first target for the European Cheops exoplanet space telescope.

    A planet was thought to have been discovered around star B and detected by HARPS. It would have been an Earth-massed rocky-iron planet with no atmosphere at epistellar distances around the orange dwarf star B. This would have been the least massive planet found around a sunlike star. The planet was informally and controversially named by Uwingu during a fund raising naming contest Albertus Alauda, after a participant's grandfather. Earthlike planets are not detectable in the habitable zone with present radial velocity methods. Technique for detection of planet is a source of doubt for some and it has yet to be independently verified. A team thought they might have detected a transit of this planet, but further observations showed the timing wasn't consistent. It is possible that a second further out (20.4 day period) Earth-sized planet is altering the transit times of the first. A cheap crowdfunded satellite devoted to studying this star could confirm the planets. The star was observed to be a good candidate to host a "super Habitable" planet, which would have 25% more gravity than the Earth, shallow seas, flatter landscape, higher atmospheric pressure, and the 6 BYO star would be stable for life longer.

    Proxima, a small flare star, was discovered in 1915 by Robert Ines, who named it. Long suspected planet around Proxima found not to exist. The Pale Red Dot project is dedicated to finding a planet around Proxima using dopplar spectrometry. As Proxima passes in front of two stars (once in 2014, again in 2016), any planets within 5 AU should be detectable via microlensing using the HST. It is known that no planets of Neptune sized mass exist within 1 AU and no Jovians with periods up to 1000 days, or transiting planets exist. An Earth-like planet in the habitable zone was discovered around Proxima Centauri. In 2017, a large stellar flare erupted and bombarded the planet, making it likely that the atmosphere has been completely stripped away by events such as this and not a good candidate for life. It was thought that a lot of dust existed in the system, making it feasable that the star had a rich complement of planets, but this seems to not be the case.

    • (3) 82 Eridani System - 82 G. Eridani is also known as 82 Eri, HR 1008, Gl 139, and HD 20794. One of the nearest star systems with planets. It is one of the dimmer yellow dwarf stars. Has three radial velocity detected super Earth planets orbiting closer than the habitable zone. The outermost one d is the largest (5 times Earth's mass, twice its radius, rocky-water composition) is about the same distance as Mercury is from the Sun. The middle one c is 0.1 au closer and is the smallest (2.5 Earth's mass, 1.5 its radius) and is likely a rocky-iron in composition. The innermost one is at 0.1 AU and just slightly larger than c, but more massive and of a more rocky-water composition. A dust disk was also found about 20AU from the star. The 2007 book "Habitable Planets for Man", released prior to the discovery of the planetary system, placed this as the most habitable star system within reach of mankind.
    • (*) Tau Ceti System - Tau Ceti is also known as HD 10700, HR 509, and Gl 71. The nearest single G-class yellow dwarf to the sun, somewhat smaller than the Sun. A popular science fiction subject and one of two targets of SETI-forerunner Project Ozma in the 1960s. Despite being somewhat older than the sun, it has an extensive asteroid and/or comet field 10-50 AU, with the bulk between 35 and 50 AU. It has about ten times as much material as the Sun. This would make life difficult. It is a metal deficient star, so it is thought less likely to host rocky planets. Traditional dopplar spectrometry has ruled out any large Jupiter sized planets at Jupiter like distances or closer in, which was thought to be good for any potentially habitable planets. Five candidate rocky super Earth planets were detected though using a new method of planetary detection. This method made predictions of the stellar "noise" activity that might obscure detection of a planet based on the long history of dopplar measurements done on this system. Deviations from this prediction pointed towards the existence of planets. Confirmation using more established methods is needed. These planets are labeled b through f as you go outward, span 0.1 AU to 1.35 AU, and get larger the further you go out (at least 2 ME to 6.6 ME). The outermost two are near the habitable zone and were originally hailed as possibly being the nearest and smallest known habitable planets. More recent modeling indicates they are not actually habitable though. Planet e is probably too close to the star and only in the HZ if generous assumptions are made. Planet f has probably only been in the habitable zone for about a billion years as a result of its star becoming hotter, which might make biosigns difficult to detect from Earth, considering it took 2 BY for biosigns to become detectable around the Earth. Since the star has a higher magnesium to silicon ratio than the Sun, these planets compositions could be quite different that the Solar System's. The lower mantles could be dominated with ferropericlase, which is not very viscious, which may make the rocks of the mantle flow easier than on Earth, affecting volcanism and tectonics. One of 5 PICTURE-C targets selected for sub-orbital coronograph observation.
      • (4) Ross 780 System - Ross 780 is also known as Gl 876 and the flare star IL Aquarii. Very nearby quadruple planet system and the first Red Dwarf found to have planets. The innermost planet (d, Hot Superterran, rocky-water) was the first found rocky planet around a normal star (the first true Super-Earth, at epistellar distances). The outer three planets c (Warm Saturnian), b (Warm Jovian), and e (Cold Neptunian) are in 1:2:4 (30d/60d/120d) resonance (the exoplanet resonance and first triple-resonant planets discovered). The outermost planet has a Mercury-like orbit. Planet b is second discovered by ELODIE after 51 Peg b and the second to have its mass exactly measured and the first to have done so by astrometry.
      • (1) Epsilon Eridani System - Ran (Epsilon Eridani) is the nearest single non-red dwarf star to the Sun, also known as HD 195019, Gl 144, and HR 1084. It is a member of the Ursa Major star association and close encounters to other stars is relatively common. One of the first stars found to have a dust disk, with several potential planets suspected in the gaps early on, and later on of the earliest nearest system with confirmed planets. Has an inner asteroid belt at 3 AU, Jovian planet AEger at 3.4 AU, outer asteroid belt at 20 AU, and Kuiper Belt at 35-100 AU. A planet is proposed to be just outside the outer asteroid belt, and another just before the Kuiper belt.Because the star is very chromospherically active, doubts were cast on planet's b's existence. Hubble then confirmed its existence with astrometrics and found to be orbiting in the plane of the dust disks, which supported the theory that planets are born from dust disks and yielded a precise mass of 1.5 MJ. The planet b was originally thought to be extremely eccentric (2-10 AU), but later discovery of the inner asteroid belt suggests it is more moderately eccentric so as not to cross the belt. It could still have high eccentricity if the outer belt was being fed with material from the outer belt though. Dinosaur-killing sized impacts would be frequent on any Earth-like planets, about once every 2 million years. One of 5 PICTURE-C targets selected for sub-orbital coronograph observation. One of the first 20 exoplanet systems allowed to be given common names by the IAU. Star is named after a Norse goddess of the seas, while the planet after her husband, god of the ocean. A common sci fi system, including the original home of Star Trek Vulcans (though this moved to 40 Eridani) and Babylon 5.
    • (*) Tabit System - Tabit is also known as Pi3 Ori, Gl 178, HD 30652, and, HR 1543,. Nearby Yellow-White Main Sequence star. It is type F6, has about 1.3 times the Sun's mass, and the same amount of its radius. It has a stable spectrum, which is used to compare with other stars. It is the brightest star in Orion's "shield" or "lion". It has a companion star that may be visual or optical. It is now 26.2 ly away, but came within 15 ly 210,000 years ago.
      • (1) BD+18°683 System - BD+18°683 is also known as Gl 176. It is a nearby red dwarf with a low period neptunian in Taurus. It was likely first catalogued in the Bonn Survey published in 1863 and its high proper motion discovered by Ross. Planet is the fourth discovered Neptunian around a Red Dwarf star. Categorized as a gaseous Hot Superterran with a metals-rich atmosphere. Mnemonic: BD Taurus.

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