25 years ago not a single planet outside the solar system had been detected that's remarkably we now know of thousands and have studied many in surprising detail esos observatories in Chile have been at the forefront of this enormous expansion in knowledge and their state-of-the-art instruments are continuing to discover and study the extraordinary diversity of exoplanets this is the esocast cutting-edge science and life behind the scenes at ESO the European Southern Observatory looking up at th
e night sky people throughout history have wondered if there are planets and especially planets bearing life beyond the solar system astronomers have also asked themselves these questions and many more are planets common or very rare do they resemble planets in the solar system or are they totally different frustratingly until very recently observational techniques were not advanced enough to be able to answer any of these questions but in 1995 this changed overnight the first exoplanet orbiting
a sun-like star was detected the monumental discovery was made by geneva-based astronomers michel my R&D a que lo around the star 51 pegasi the exoplanet named 51 pegasi B has around half the mass of Jupiter and travels around its parent star in just over four Earth days but this was only the beginning the initial trickle of discoveries became a flood thousands of exoplanets has since been detected in a huge variety of sizes and orbits many of these discoveries have been made by eso's observato
ries in Chile but the hunt for exoplanets is a challenging one these alien worlds hide in the shadows giving off little or no light of their own any like that they do emit is swamped by the overwhelming brilliance of their parent star however advanced observational methods can be used to spot these elusive exoplanets the weak gravitational pull of an exoplanet in orbit causes its parent star to wobble back and forth this tiny motion causes a small shift in the star spectrum which extremely sensi
tive spectrographs such as those hops can detect through radial velocity tracking apps installed on the Easter 3.6 meter telescope match the lassie observatory is the world's foremost exoplanet hunter it's the most successful finder of low-mass exoplanets to date in $MONTH 2010 the instrument discovered the riches planetary system yet the system located over a hundred and twenty light-years away around the sun-like star HD 10 180 contains at least five exoplanets there is also tantalizing eviden
ce that two more planets may be present in this system one of which would have the lowest mass ever found planetary transits can also be utilized by astronomers to indirectly detect distant worlds when an exoplanet passes in front of its parent star as seen from the earth it blocks a small fraction of the star's light from our view this creates a dip in the brightness of the star which can be measured in addition to determining the size of an exoplanet planetary transits can reveal the compositi
on of an exoplanets atmosphere the atmosphere around a super-earth exoplanet was analyzed for the first time by astronomers using the Very Large Telescope the planet which is known as GJ 1214b was studied as it passed in front of its parent star and Starlight passed through the planet's atmosphere this starlight revealed that the planet's atmosphere is either mostly water in the form of steam or is dominated by thick clouds or Hayes's directly observing an exoplanet is a monumental feat but one
that was first achieved by ESO the Very Large Telescope obtained the first-ever image of a planet outside the solar system 2m 1207 be is five times more massive than Jupiter it orbits a failed star a brown dwarf at a distance 55 times larger than the earth to the Sun esos telescopes are equipped with state-of-the-art instruments but to remain at the forefront of exoplanet research ESO has recently commissioned to new instruments for the VLT sphere is able to find and study faint planets masked b
y the glare of their host stars and in the near future the espresso spectrograph will arrive at the VLT where it will surpass harps the European extremely large telescope which is currently under construction in Chile will take the hunt for exoplanets even further once operational this 39 meet a scope could detect earth-like planets and possibly evidence of alien biospheres the search for planets outside the solar system constitutes a key element of what is possibly the greatest question of or i
s there life elsewhere in the universe over the past 20 years our knowledge of exoplanets has advanced dramatically but the quest for earth-like planets and those that Harbor life remains one of the great frontiers of astronomy are we alone we do not know but the answer is almost within reach history about the only person around it doesn't have TV coverage of the baby and it man you got the black up now you can start getting a TV picture mail yes we are getting one all
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