General
This method of exoplanet detection involves observing the dimming of a star as a planet passes in front of it.
What is the transit method?
This type of light shift is observed when a star moves toward or away from us due to an orbiting planet.
What is the Doppler shift?
A planet must have this kind of orbital alignment with respect to Earth for a transit to be observable.
What is edge-on (or nearly edge-on)?
The Kepler Space Telescope used this technique to find over 2,600 confirmed exoplanets during its mission.
What is the transit method?
This planetary neighbor of Earth has been a primary target in the search for past or present microbial life.
What is Mars?
This exoplanet, discovered in 1995, was the first confirmed around a Sun-like star
What is 51 Pegasi b?
This part of the star’s spectrum is analyzed for shifts when using the radial velocity technique.
What are absorption lines?
The depth of a transit tells us this property of the exoplanet relative to its host star.
What is the planet’s radius (or size)?
Kepler focused on a specific region of the sky in this constellation during its primary mission.
What is Cygnus?
This icy moon of Jupiter is thought to have a subsurface ocean and is a top candidate in the search for extraterrestrial life.
What is Europa?
This region around a star is where liquid water could exist on a planet's surface.
What is the habitable zone?
The radial velocity method is most sensitive to planets with these two orbital characteristics.
What are high mass and short orbital period?
By measuring the time between transits, scientists can determine this characteristic of an exoplanet's orbit.
What is the orbital period?
Launched in 2018, this NASA mission continues the search for exoplanets around bright, nearby stars.
What is TESS (Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite)?
This famous equation estimates the number of communicative civilizations in our galaxy.
What is the Drake Equation?
This type of planet is significantly larger than Earth but smaller than Neptune, with a thick atmosphere and potentially a rocky core.
What is a super-Earth?
One major limitation of the radial velocity method is that it cannot determine this orbital parameter without additional data.
What is the orbital inclination?
Combining the transit method with radial velocity data allows astronomers to estimate this property of the exoplanet.
What is its density (or mass and radius together)?
Launched in 2006, this French-led mission was the first to detect transiting exoplanets from space.
What is CoRoT (Convection, Rotation and planetary Transits)?
The detection of gases like oxygen, ozone, or methane in an exoplanet's atmosphere could be considered this type of evidence for life.
What is a biosignature?
This effect, caused by a star's motion toward and away from us, allows astronomers to detect planets via changes in the star’s spectrum.
What is the radial velocity method?
The minimum mass of a detected exoplanet by radial velocity is often expressed with this formulaic term.
What is M sin i (mass times sine of inclination)?
During transit, starlight passing through an exoplanet’s atmosphere can reveal its composition using this technique.
What is transmission spectroscopy?
This mission, planned by NASA, will use direct imaging to study Earth-like exoplanets around Sun-like stars.
What is the Habitable Worlds Observatory (or formerly LUVOIR/HabEx concepts)?
The only planet for which we have 100% evidence of life
What is Earth?