While the article at Daily Kos refers to eclipses, what the instrument is really looking for transits.
If they were actually eclipses, they'd be (i) relatively easy to spot and (ii) (give the relative distances involoved) require extremely large planets - so large in fact that we'd be talking about a binary system, not an exoplanet orbiting a star.
Possible Worlds
Watching 100,000 stars at a time for eclipses. The data requirements alone must be tremendous.
ReplyDeleteHi Cujo,
ReplyDeleteWhile the article at Daily Kos refers to eclipses, what the instrument is really looking for transits.
If they were actually eclipses, they'd be (i) relatively easy to spot and (ii) (give the relative distances involoved) require extremely large planets - so large in fact that we'd be talking about a binary system, not an exoplanet orbiting a star.
You're right about the amount of data involved.
I didn't remember what the term was, if I ever knew, but didn't think that they could really be talking about eclipses. Thanks for clearing that up.
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