WEBVTT 1 00:00:00.235 --> 00:00:02.640 My name is Mercedes López Morales 2 00:00:02.640 --> 00:00:05.550 and I'm an astronomer at the Center for Astrophysics. 3 00:00:05.550 --> 00:00:08.520 I study exoplanets, which are planets that orbit 4 00:00:08.520 --> 00:00:12.540 around stars other than the sun. As you look at other stars, 5 00:00:12.540 --> 00:00:15.450 it turns out that pretty much every star has a planet. 6 00:00:15.450 --> 00:00:17.430 We basically have been finding these planets 7 00:00:17.430 --> 00:00:19.410 for almost like 30 years now, 8 00:00:19.410 --> 00:00:22.080 and the most successful technique is 9 00:00:22.080 --> 00:00:24.240 what we call the transit technique, 10 00:00:24.240 --> 00:00:27.420 which basically takes advantage of some 11 00:00:27.420 --> 00:00:29.700 of these planets actually crossing in front 12 00:00:29.700 --> 00:00:32.130 of the star from our point of view. 13 00:00:32.130 --> 00:00:33.840 So it's like a little eclipse. 14 00:00:33.840 --> 00:00:35.520 So you know, every time the planet goes in front 15 00:00:35.520 --> 00:00:38.730 of the star, you see this little dip 16 00:00:38.730 --> 00:00:40.740 in the light coming from the star, 17 00:00:40.740 --> 00:00:43.620 and that little dip is produced by a planet. 18 00:00:43.620 --> 00:00:45.360 So you know that we have a planet there. 19 00:00:46.470 --> 00:00:50.430 Initially, all the transiting planets were discovered 20 00:00:50.430 --> 00:00:54.990 with very small telescopes from the ground, for example, 21 00:00:54.990 --> 00:00:59.880 WASP-96B was discovered by the Wide Angle Search 22 00:00:59.880 --> 00:01:03.210 for Planets project, which is basically a group of very, 23 00:01:03.210 --> 00:01:07.020 very small telescopes that were monitoring the sky over 24 00:01:07.020 --> 00:01:09.840 and over and over looking for these little dips in, 25 00:01:09.840 --> 00:01:11.490 you know, in the light coming from the star. 26 00:01:12.540 --> 00:01:15.390 The advantage of small telescopes from the ground is 27 00:01:15.390 --> 00:01:18.210 that unlike big professional telescopes, 28 00:01:18.210 --> 00:01:20.550 you can use these telescopes all the time 29 00:01:20.550 --> 00:01:23.910 and you can stare at stars for a very long period of time. 30 00:01:23.910 --> 00:01:25.710 So they're really, really good at finding 31 00:01:25.710 --> 00:01:27.120 transiting planets. 32 00:01:27.120 --> 00:01:30.510 That was the technology that we had more than a decade ago, 33 00:01:30.510 --> 00:01:35.510 and if you compare the original WASP-96B light curve 34 00:01:35.670 --> 00:01:39.900 with what we can do now for that same planet with JWST, 35 00:01:39.900 --> 00:01:42.000 you see that the original light curve was 36 00:01:42.000 --> 00:01:43.230 really, really noisy. 37 00:01:43.230 --> 00:01:46.560 We could barely see that 1% drop in light. 38 00:01:46.560 --> 00:01:49.320 Well now with a, with the James Webb, 39 00:01:49.320 --> 00:01:51.510 you can easily see a very, 40 00:01:51.510 --> 00:01:53.490 very precise transit light curve. 41 00:01:53.490 --> 00:01:56.130 So the technology has come a long way. 42 00:01:56.130 --> 00:01:57.840 But if it hadn't been 43 00:01:57.840 --> 00:02:00.540 for the very small telescopes on the ground initially, 44 00:02:00.540 --> 00:02:03.720 we wouldn't be here in this field. With the techniques 45 00:02:03.720 --> 00:02:05.580 that we have right now, 46 00:02:05.580 --> 00:02:09.300 we still cannot detect a planet exactly like Earth. 47 00:02:09.300 --> 00:02:12.240 That is, a planet the size of our Earth 48 00:02:12.240 --> 00:02:16.230 around a star like the Sun orbiting in a one-year period. 49 00:02:16.230 --> 00:02:19.440 Our technology doesn't allow us to do this, to do 50 00:02:19.440 --> 00:02:21.030 that just yet. 51 00:02:21.030 --> 00:02:24.780 However, with the technology that we have, we have found 52 00:02:24.780 --> 00:02:27.570 over over 6,000 planets right now. 53 00:02:27.570 --> 00:02:32.040 But all of them are much closer to their host stars. 54 00:02:32.040 --> 00:02:33.360 You know, we are talking about planets 55 00:02:33.360 --> 00:02:36.390 that go out on the stars on periods 56 00:02:36.390 --> 00:02:40.020 of about like from three days to about a hundred days. 57 00:02:40.020 --> 00:02:41.760 And for, for those type 58 00:02:41.760 --> 00:02:44.580 of planets we have seen pretty much everything. 59 00:02:44.580 --> 00:02:48.720 We have seen planets the size of Jupiter, Saturn, Neptune, 60 00:02:48.720 --> 00:02:52.620 you name it, all the way down to Mars-sized planets. 61 00:02:52.620 --> 00:02:55.650 So these systems that we have found so far are, 62 00:02:55.650 --> 00:02:56.730 you know, are in size, 63 00:02:56.730 --> 00:02:59.860 the planets are similar to the planets in the solar system, 64 00:02:59.860 --> 00:03:02.440 but the properties of these planets are fairly different 65 00:03:02.440 --> 00:03:04.660 to the solar system. To begin with, 66 00:03:04.660 --> 00:03:06.310 they're all like hotter versions 67 00:03:06.310 --> 00:03:09.100 of our own solar system planets. 68 00:03:09.100 --> 00:03:11.170 And this is new science 69 00:03:11.170 --> 00:03:13.600 because it means that everything that we have found 70 00:03:13.600 --> 00:03:17.050 so far is not like the solar system. 71 00:03:17.050 --> 00:03:20.020 So one of the open questions in exoplanets is 72 00:03:20.020 --> 00:03:23.290 how common are solar systems out there? 73 00:03:23.290 --> 00:03:27.970 You know, are we a very unique system? Or, we don't know yet, 74 00:03:27.970 --> 00:03:30.640 because our techniques don't allow us to see 75 00:03:30.640 --> 00:03:32.080 systems like ours. 76 00:03:32.080 --> 00:03:35.380 So now it's your time to take your own data as part 77 00:03:35.380 --> 00:03:38.290 of this DIY Planet Search Project 78 00:03:38.290 --> 00:03:40.510 and analyze it to see what the properties of 79 00:03:40.510 --> 00:03:41.440 that planet are.