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An exoplanet or extrasolar planet is a planet outside the Solar System. The first possible evidence of an exoplanet was noted in 1917 but was not then recognized as such. The first confirmed detection of an exoplanet was in 1992 around a pulsar, and the first detection around a main-sequence star was in 1995. A different planet, first detected in 1988, was confirmed in 2003. As of 19 December 2024, there are 5,811 confirmed exoplanets in 4,340 planetary systems, with 973 systems having more than one planet. In collaboration with ground-based and other space-based observatories the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) is expected to give more insight into exoplanet traits, such as their composition, environmental conditions, and potential for life.
A binary star or binary star system is a system of two stars that are gravitationally bound to and in orbit around each other. Binary stars in the night sky that are seen as a single object to the naked eye are often resolved as separate stars using a telescope, in which case they are called visual binaries. Many visual binaries have long orbital periods of several centuries or millennia and therefore have orbits which are uncertain or poorly known. They may also be detected by indirect techniques, such as spectroscopy or astrometry. If a binary star happens to orbit in a plane along our line of sight, its components will eclipse and transit each other; these pairs are called eclipsing binaries, or, together with other binaries that change brightness as they orbit, photometric binaries.
A variable star is a star whose brightness as seen from Earth changes systematically with time. This variation may be caused by a change in emitted light or by something partly blocking the light, so variable stars are classified as either:
In astronomy, a light curve is a graph of the light intensity of a celestial object or region as a function of time, typically with the magnitude of light received on the y-axis and with time on the x-axis. The light is usually in a particular frequency interval or band.
A binary system is a system of two astronomical bodies of the same kind that are comparable in size. Definitions vary, but typically require the center of mass to be located outside of either object.
An exomoon or extrasolar moon is a natural satellite that orbits an exoplanet or other non-stellar extrasolar body.
Any planet is an extremely faint light source compared to its parent star. For example, a star like the Sun is about a billion times as bright as the reflected light from any of the planets orbiting it. In addition to the intrinsic difficulty of detecting such a faint light source, the light from the parent star causes a glare that washes it out. For those reasons, very few of the exoplanets reported as of January 2024 have been observed directly, with even fewer being resolved from their host star.
Doppler spectroscopy is an indirect method for finding extrasolar planets and brown dwarfs from radial-velocity measurements via observation of Doppler shifts in the spectrum of the planet's parent star. As of November 2022, about 19.5% of known extrasolar planets have been discovered using Doppler spectroscopy.
This page describes exoplanet orbital and physical parameters.
CM Draconis is an eclipsing binary star system 48.5 light-years away in the constellation of Draco. The system consists of two nearly identical red dwarf stars that orbit each other with a period of 1.268 days and a separation of 2.6 million kilometres. Along with two stars in the triple system KOI-126, the stars in CM Draconis are among the lightest stars with precisely measured masses and radii. Consequently, the system plays an important role in testing stellar structure models for very low mass stars. These comparisons find that models underpredict the stellar radii by approximately 5%. This is attributed to consequences of the stars' strong magnetic activity.
A circumbinary planet is a planet that orbits two stars instead of one. The two stars orbit each other in a binary system, while the planet typically orbits farther from the center of the system than either of the two stars. In contrast, circumstellar planets in a binary system have stable orbits around one of the two stars, closer in than the orbital distance of the other star. Studies in 2013 showed that there is a strong hint that a circumbinary planet and its stars originate from a single disk.
NN Serpentis is an eclipsing post-common envelope binary system approximately 1670 light-years away. The system comprises an eclipsing white dwarf and red dwarf. The two stars orbit each other every 0.13 days.
QS Virginis is an eclipsing binary system approximately 163 light-years away from the Sun, forming a cataclysmic variable. The system comprises an eclipsing white dwarf and red dwarf that orbit each other every 3.37 hours.
A Kepler object of interest (KOI) is a star observed by the Kepler space telescope that is suspected of hosting one or more transiting planets. KOIs come from a master list of 150,000 stars, which itself is generated from the Kepler Input Catalog (KIC). A KOI shows a periodic dimming, indicative of an unseen planet passing between the star and Earth, eclipsing part of the star. However, such an observed dimming is not a guarantee of a transiting planet, because other astronomical objects—such as an eclipsing binary in the background—can mimic a transit signal. For this reason, the majority of KOIs are as yet not confirmed transiting planet systems.
This glossary of astronomy is a list of definitions of terms and concepts relevant to astronomy and cosmology, their sub-disciplines, and related fields. Astronomy is concerned with the study of celestial objects and phenomena that originate outside the atmosphere of Earth. The field of astronomy features an extensive vocabulary and a significant amount of jargon.
Kepler-89 is a star with four confirmed planets. Kepler-89 is a possible wide binary star.
Kepler-90h is an exoplanet orbiting within the habitable zone of the early G-type main sequence star Kepler-90, the outermost of eight such planets discovered by NASA's Kepler spacecraft. It is located about 2,840 light-years, from Earth in the constellation Draco. The exoplanet was found by using the transit method, in which the dimming effect that a planet causes as it crosses in front of its star is measured.
RR Caeli is an eclipsing binary star system, located 69 light-years from Earth in the constellation Caelum. It is made up of a red dwarf star and a white dwarf, which complete an orbit around each other every seven hours. There is evidence of two circumbinary planets orbiting even further away.
The Applegate mechanism explains long term orbital period variations seen in certain eclipsing binaries. As a main sequence star goes through an activity cycle, the outer layers of the star are subject to a magnetic torque changing the distribution of angular momentum, resulting in a change in the star's oblateness. The orbit of the stars in the binary pair is gravitationally coupled to their shape changes, so that the period shows modulations on the same time scale as the activity cycles.
Kepler-451 is an eclipsing post-common envelope binary star system that comprises two stars, a pulsating subdwarf B star and a small red dwarf star. It is located about 1,340 light-years away in the constellation Cygnus. It has been hypothesized to host one or more exoplanets.
References
- ↑ Haghighipour, N. (2014). Light Travel Time Effect. In: Amils, R., et al. Encyclopedia of Astrobiology. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-27833-4_5301-4
- ↑ Montalto, M. (October 21, 2010). "Planetary transit timing variations induced by stellar binarity" (PDF). Astronomy and Astrophysics. 521: 6 – via aanda.org.