Introductory questions for

Detecting Extrasolar Planets

from Space Science Sequence Unit 4Great Explorations in Math and Science

(GEMS)http://www.lhsgems.org

Do you think there are planets orbiting other stars?

... How many?

Are all stars the same size and temperature as the

Sun?

How might the type of star affect whether it has habitable planets?

If there is a certain zone around a star where life

might exist, what must be critical qualities of that

zone?

What things would you want to know about a

newly discovered planet? ooo ooo

Why would exoplanets be hard to detect?

What methods do astronomers use to find

planets?

What’s this?

What happens when a planet transits a star?

Make a model that you can use to demonstrate a

planet transit.

For each team of 4–6 students:

• 1 snake book light • 1 prepared Ping-Pong ball (see

Getting Ready) • several round, opaque plastic

beads (ranging in size from 8 mm to 16 mm in diameter)

• 2 or more pipe cleaners• 1 or 2 chopsticks or

thin wooden dowels• black thread• 4" x 6” index cards

• tape

• paper or plastic bag to hold the materials

Book lights:create a model “star” by setting up a light bulb and socket in the middle of the classroom for teams to demonstrate their transits.

What kind of orbit would allow us to see a transit?

Ball-on-stick demo

What’s wrong with this statement:

“If a star has an orbiting planet, astronomers can

usually detect it by transit observations”

Kepler is designed to monitor

brightness of 100,000 stars

simultaneously for over 3 years.

Scale of the model?

Return to questions about planets (slide 6)

• Are there more questions?• Do transit observations help us

answer the questions?

More about Kepler mission...