Astronomy 171 - Winter Quarter 2007
Solar System Astronomy

Prof. Paul Martini - MTWRF 9:30-10:18pm - 0050 Scott Laboratory

Unit 7: Planets around Other Stars

Lecture 40: Finding Extrasolar Planets [Mar 7]

Lecture 41: Other Solar Systems [Mar 8]

Lecture 42: Life, The Universe, and Everything [Mar 9]

Related Readings in Universe

Chapter 8-6

Chapter 30-1, 30-4

Web links for Further Exploration in Unit 7

The California-Carnegie Search for Extrasolar Planets website has some nice material on the properties of extrasolar planets, as well as more details of the search techniques. I obtained many of the graphics shown in class from this website.

The Extrasolar Planets Encyclopaedia is a valuable resource for the different detection techniques.

There is a great and interactive Radial Velocity Simulator by Terry Herter at Cornell that allows one to experiment with how variations in orbital parameters lead to different radial velocity variations. Note that this simulator is really a demonstration for binary stars, rather than stars with planets, but the only difference is that for planets the faster moving component (the planet) will not be visible spectroscopically.

The links to the lectures reproduce the electronic overheads shown in class for each of the lectures. In some cases they have additional text and links covering supplemental material or graphics. Online lecture notes are made available starting the week in which the lectures occur, but some notes may not be accessible until later in the week if I am having problems translating them into a web-accessible form.

Please feel free to print out copies of these lecture outlines in advance of class, so you can follow along with the lecture. Many students find this helps them listen without the pressure of taking down detailed notes of their own, but while still making additional notes in the margins to highlight particularly emphasized points.

See A Note about Graphics to learn why some of the graphics shown in the lectures are not reproduced with these notes.

Students looking to explore these topics further using the Internet might want to look at Prof. Richard Pogge's Selected Astronomical Internet Links for this unit.

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Updated: 2007 March 7
Copyright © Paul Martini All Rights Reserved.