Amazing stuff! We are not alone!
"UCLA astronomers have identified 366 new exoplanets, thanks in large part to an algorithm developed by a UCLA postdoctoral scholar. Among their most noteworthy findings is a planetary system that comprises a star and at least two gas giant planets, each roughly the size of Saturn and located unusually close to one another. ...
The number of exoplanets that have been identified by astronomers numbers fewer than 5,000 in all, so the identification of hundreds of new ones is a significant advance. ...
The discovery was made possible by a new planet detection algorithm that Zink developed. One challenge in identifying new planets is that reductions in staller brightness may originate from the instrument or from an alternative astrophysical source that mimics a planetary signature. Teasing out which ones are which requires extra investigation, which traditionally has been extremely time consuming and can only be accomplished through visual inspection. Zink’s algorithm is able to separate which signals indicate planets and which are merely noise. ...
The number of exoplanets that have been identified by astronomers numbers fewer than 5,000 in all, so the identification of hundreds of new ones is a significant advance. ...
The discovery was made possible by a new planet detection algorithm that Zink developed. One challenge in identifying new planets is that reductions in staller brightness may originate from the instrument or from an alternative astrophysical source that mimics a planetary signature. Teasing out which ones are which requires extra investigation, which traditionally has been extremely time consuming and can only be accomplished through visual inspection. Zink’s algorithm is able to separate which signals indicate planets and which are merely noise. ...
Kepler’s original mission came to an unexpected end in 2013 when a mechanical failure left the spacecraft unable to precisely point at the patch of sky it had been observing for years. But astronomers repurposed the telescope for a new mission known as K2, whose objective is to identify exoplanets near distant stars. ..."
From the abstract:
"We provide the first full K2 transiting exoplanet sample, using photometry from Campaigns 1–8 and 10–18, derived through an entirely automated procedure. This homogeneous planet candidate catalog is crucial to perform a robust demographic analysis of transiting exoplanets with K2. We identify 747 unique planet candidates and 57 multiplanet systems. Of these candidates, 366 have not been previously identified, including one resonant multiplanet system and one system with two short-period gas giants. ..."
Scaling K2. IV. A Uniform Planet Sample for Campaigns 1–8 and 10–18 (no public access)
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