Table of Contents
NOTES
•India Joins A Club Of Select Nations, Who Have Discovered And Measured A Planet
•Discovery of a Sub-Saturn Exoplanet around a Sun-like star.
EXOPLANET NOTES
What are exoplanets ?
Planets outside our solar system are called exoplanets. Most of these are part of star systems. There are some “rogue” exoplanets, which are not attached to any star system.
When was the first exoplanet discovered?
The first exoplanet, 51 Pegasi b, was discovered in 1995 by Michael Mayor and Didier Queloz.
NOTES
•A team of scientists from the Physical Research Laboratory (PRL), Ahmedabad, discovered a sub-Saturn or super-Neptune size exoplanet, which is about 27 times the mass of Earth and six times the radius of Earth.
•The planet revolves around a Sun-like star, some 600 light years away from Earth.
NAME OF THE HOST STAR EPIC
211945201 or K2-236 and the planet will be known as EPIC 211945201b or K2-236b
THE DISCOVERY
•The discovery was made by measuring the mass of the planet using the indigenous designed ‘PRL Advance Radial-velocity Abu-Sky Search’ (PARAS) spectro graph integrated with 1.2m
telescope at PRL’s Gurushikar Observatory in Mount Abu.
DISCOVERY
The surface temperature of the planet was found to be around 600 degrees Celsius, as
it is very close to the host star. It is seven times nearer to its star, in comparison with
Earth-Sun distance. This might make it uninhabitable.
IMPORTANCE
•This detection was important as it adds to a sparse catalog of confirmed exoplanets with
masses between 10 and 70 MEarth and radii between 4 and 8 REarth, whose masses and radii
are measured to a precision of 50% or better.
•Only 23 such systems (including the present) are known to this date with such precise
measurement of mass and radii.
PHYSICAL RESEARCH LABORATORY
The Physical Research Laboratory (PRL) is a National Research Institute for space and allied
sciences, supported mainly by Department of Space, Government of India.
Known as the cradle of space sciences in India, the Physical Research Laboratory (PRL) was founded on 11 November 1947 by Dr. Vikram Sarabhai.
MOUNT ABU INFRARED OBSERVATORY
The Mount Abu InfraRed Observatory is located near the town Mount Abu in the state
of Rajasthan.
The observatory is at an altitude of 1680 metres and is adjacent to Guru Shikhar, highest
peak of the Aravalli Range.
NOTES
Mt. Abu has about 200 cloud-free nights of which 150 nights a year can be used for photo metric observations.
PRL Advanced Radial-velocity All-sky Search (PARAS) to detect extra solar planets using the
radial velocity technique began observation in April 2012.
PARAS
•PRL Advanced Radial-velocity All-sky Search’( spectro graph ).
WhatsApp