How to find Extrasolar Planets
July 4th 2010 06:15
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An artists impression of an Hot Jupiter like planet with a rocky companion. (Credit: NASA/ESA (G. Bacon)
There are currently 209 known planets outside our solar system documented so far. But that’s only the tip of the iceberg there are even more out there, and astronomers are asking for help from amateur astronomers in the search for more.
The search for these elusive objects is not limited to just astronomers. You don't have to have any experience or knowledge of astronomy, just an interest is all that you really required.It is a project that anyone join in all that’s needed is some spare time a computer and internet connection.
It’s based on a similar project idea used by SETI some years ago with people world-wide using their computers to process data for the radio information obtained by the SETI radio telescopes.
The out of this world project is called Systemic. It's a free web program that lets anyone hunt outer-space data to find our distant planetary neighbours.
Processing enormous amounts of data by a few Super-computers is inefficient, it makes better sense if you can utilize lots of small computers linked together on the internet each sharing a small part of data processing load. The process of finding Extra-Solar planets can be explained by using our solar system as a template.
Our Sun provides us with light energy. It also supports our journey through space by holding the planets in an elliptical orbit. In turn each planet has a gravitational effect on our Sun causing the Sun to wobble slightly on its axis. The individual user’s software measures the light and wobble combinations and compares them to known planet systems. Users submit the information to confirm a new planet.
The earlier SETI@home project worked by letting users download a screensaver that used their personal computer’s processing power to analyze data from radio telescopes.
Free Software download Link
This project has gone a step further, this time astronomers wanted something that would more fully engage the user. The programe involves a sophisticated simulation that searches for planets by creating a data set of 100,000 stars.
There are many thousands of planets out there on could have your name on it.
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