Due Wednesday, 3/9/11

See the bottom of lecture #39 and lecture #40 for walk thrus of the doppler wobble.

Planetary detection has come a considerable way since the initial discovery of 51 Pegasus in 1995. In order to appreciate how difficult it is to confirm a detection of an extrasolar planet, you will perform the following simulations using this widget.

1. Click on the link above and open the widget. You will estimate the Jupiter mass and star-planet distance of four planetary systems listed under the catalog called Solar Type Stars. They are:

gl575

gl187.1

gl332

NN4066

The trick is that you will try to solve for the mass and planet-star distance using simulations that mimic technology through the last 16 years. There are 3 different cases meaning that you will have 12 simulations to run.

Observing/Dectector Cases

Case I:

• Time Span= 10 years
• Record Rate = 50
• Error = 15

Case II:

• Time Span = 4 years
• Samples =20
• Error = 7

Case III:

• Time Span= 20 years
• Record Rate = 80
• Error = 3

In some simulations, there will not be a successful detection and you need to think about and report on why that is the case.

For each star, you must enter the following:

a) record the mass of the hypothetical planet,

b) record the distance of the hypothetical planet and

c) the most important part argue whether or not the data is good enough to even perform a credible fit - in many cases the data is not good enough and you need to look at it and explain why.

d) if you can't determine mass or distance for any of the 3 cases, alter either the time span, sample number or error until you can see a signal. Report the time span, error or record rate that allows you to detect the planet. If you still can't see the planet , then you need to report on why that might be the case.