![]() Planets do not light up in space in the same way that stars do so Kepler cannot observe them directly. Van Eylen explains that they used data from the famous Kepler satellite which has been studying the stars for several years and has found hundreds of these exoplanets. How did the scientists measure the shape of planets’ orbit? "It is important to know how circular or eccentric an exoplanet’s orbit is, because it can tell us something about how the planetary system was formed," says Buchhave. We now know that the method works, so we just have to wait for more data," says Professor Simon Albrecht from Aarhus University in a press release.Īccording to planetary scientist at Harvard University, Lars Buchhave, knowledge of the eccentricity of planetary orbits also gives us an important glimpse of a planet’s history. "In the future, this method can also be used in the search for habitable planets. Life as we know it, could therefore not exist.īut the hope is that in the future, the newly developed method to measure the shape of planetary orbits might help scientists looking for life on other planets. None of the planets are located at an appropriate distance to their star, which is needed for water to exist in a liquid form. So, could there be life on any of these 74 exoplanets? The scientists emphasise, that the answer is most probably no. The scientists behind the new study estimate that the types of orbits they have measured here offer the best conditions for life. He explains that Earth, along with all other planets in our solar system, follows a roughly circular orbit around the Sun and therefore has a very low eccentricity. If the planet's orbit is highly eccentric, the climate will be unstable, making it less likely that the planet sustains life," says Van Eylen. "One of the factors that may influence whether a planet can support life is whether or not the orbit is circular because this affects the planet’s climate. ![]() Van Eylen points out that studying the eccentricity of planetary orbits can tell us whether the planet has conditions suitable for life to exist. The higher the eccentricity, the more elongated and stretched the circle becomes. A perfectly round circle has an eccentricity of zero. The small planetary orbits that we have measured are basically circular," says Van Eylen.Įccentricity is a measure of how elongated a circle is. Now, we have shown that this is different for small exoplanets. "Up until now we’ve only been able to measure the orbit of large planets and measurements show that most large planets have very elongated and elliptical orbits. They discovered that most of them had circular orbits. planets orbiting stars other than our sun. In the new study, the scientists measured the orbital courses of 74 smaller exoplanets – i.e. Grey and black spots indicate exoplanets, as measured previously. The red spots are planets of our own Solar System blue spots indicate the 74 exoplanets measured in the new study. The vertical axis shows how the planetary eccentricity, while the horizontal axis indicates the planetary weight (mass).
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