ColdFusion - 7 "Earth-Like" Planets Discovered: How Did NASA/ESO Do It?

Starting point is 00:00:00 You are watching Cold Fusion TV. Welcome to another Cold Fusion video. As most of you probably already know, NASA has just recently announced the discovery of seven Earth-sized planets in another solar system within our galaxy. Here are the details. The star system, called Trappus 1, is about 40 light years or 380 trillion kilometers away from Earth. Now that may sound far, but in astronomical terms, that's actually really close, right? right in our backyard. But still, the fastest moving man-made object, the Juno spacecraft, would take 158,000 years

Starting point is 00:00:49 to get there. To get there in a reasonable amount of time using our current understanding of physics, we'd either have to travel at the speed of light or bend space-time itself to create a wormhole, both of which were nowhere near figuring out. These seven planets are said to be rocky in nature and orbit very close to an ultra-cooled dwarf star. To give you an idea of how close together they are, if Trappus 1 was our star, all seven planets would be within Mercury's orbit. Mercury is the closest planet to the sun in our solar system. The main excitement and buzz around this is that three of the planets are in the

Starting point is 00:01:25 so-called Goldilocks zone, that is, an area of orbit from the host star that is neither too hot or too cold to support liquid water. This zone is said to be habitable for life. The orbits of These three planets take six, nine and twelve days respectively to circulate around the small star. For clarity and definition, planets outside of our solar system are defined by the term exoplanet. This recently discovered solar system is unique because no other system that we know contain so many Earth-sized exoplanets. So the question is, how did NASA do it? Astronomers use the Spitzer Space Telescope to make the discovery.

Starting point is 00:02:06 This telescope looks at infrared wavelengths which glow from the tapus one star and can detect when a planet passes in front of it. The telescope is able to detect this because the glow from the star gets a tiny bit dimmer each time a planet crosses in front of its path. From this data, they could estimate the mass and density of these planets. In total, the Spitzer spacecraft monitored the solar system for about 500 hours. Traditionally, in the 20th century, exoplanets were originally found by the wobble, that they induced on a star as their gravitational pull affected it. This method only just allowed us to know that these planets existed. For a visual example, check out the wobble of the star on the left in this artist's representation.

Starting point is 00:02:52 Nowadays, in the 21st century, we can analyze in much more detail. Here's how it's done. When light from a star passes through the atmospheric horizon of a planet and travels trillions of kilometers to us, that light is affected by gases in the alien planet's atmosphere. The The different wavelengths of light are absorbed by different gases. By analysing the light spectrum, we can actually gain insight into the chemical composition and likely make up of that atmosphere. That's not bad for being trillions of kilometers away. Now the funny thing about all of this is that the Spitzer telescope, which was launched back

Starting point is 00:03:28 in 2003, was never supposed to be operational for this long. The craft wasn't even planned to do any of this. So how does the Spitzer telescope actually communicate back with scientists on Earth? The telescope actually follows the orbit of the Earth but at a slightly slower speed. As the craft gets further away from us, its antenna has to point at increasingly higher angles to communicate with us. Unfortunately, at the same time, this higher angle of tilt results in less sunlight reaching the solar panels of the craft. This means that there's less power to the telescope, so eventually we're going to lose communication with the craft because it would lose power completely. But this isn't the end of things though.

Starting point is 00:04:07 In 2018, NASA will be launching the James Webb Telescope. This is a massive leap forward in all previous efforts, and from this telescope, we'll actually be able to see images of these distant planets. Part of the Spitzer's extended mission is to scout out new areas for the James Webb telescope to look at in more detail. It's kind of like passing on the baton between two telescopes. One final point of interest that you might like to know is that, believe it or not, Exoplanet hunting is actually very recent.

Starting point is 00:04:38 The first exoplanet was discovered in 1995 and its name was 51 Pegasai B. This planet was a hot, unkind place, very close to its parent star and about half the size of Jupiter. Since then, thousands of exoplanets have been found. This isn't really a testament to how smart we've gotten over the past quarter century, but it's more a measure of how our technology has improved, allowing us to be able to detect more planets. It doesn't stop there though. Recent statistical estimates say that there's at least one planet around every star in our galaxy. That's something like a trillion exoplanets in our galaxy alone.

Starting point is 00:05:16 Many of these are Earth-sized. And I find this fascinating. All in all, it kind of makes you feel small in a way. Pretty much every part of world history, every person you've ever heard about or known, and all things relative to us throughout time, have just happened on this tiny planet, which is a microscopic part of a much bigger picture. Anyways, that was just a quick video highlighting NASA's latest discovery. I hope you found that interesting and learned something from that.

Starting point is 00:05:42 If you've just stumbled across this channel, feel free to subscribe. This has been Degogo. You've been watching Cold Fusion. Thanks for watching and I'll catch you again soon for the next video. Cheers. Have a good one.

ColdFusion - 7 "Earth-Like" Planets Discovered: How Did NASA/ESO Do It?

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