Exoplanets: What's in a Name?
Clip: Special | 1m 4sVideo has Closed Captions
How do astronomers “name” exoplanets?
Our solar system’s planets have names like Venus and Jupiter, but exoplanets have letters and numbers instead. How do scientists “name” exoplanets?
Science Trek is a local public television program presented by IdahoPTV
Major Funding by the Laura Moore Cunningham Foundation and the Idaho National Laboratory. Additional Funding by Sparklight, the Friends of Idaho Public Television and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.
Exoplanets: What's in a Name?
Clip: Special | 1m 4sVideo has Closed Captions
Our solar system’s planets have names like Venus and Jupiter, but exoplanets have letters and numbers instead. How do scientists “name” exoplanets?
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Science Trek
Science Trek is a place where parents, kids, and educators can watch short, educational videos on a variety of science topics. Every Monday Science Trek releases a new video that introduces children to math, science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) career potentials in a fun, informative way.(SCIENCE TREK MUSIC) JOAN CARTAN-HANSEN, HOST: Exoplanets generally have numbers instead of names.
Why?
Well, first of all, there are a huge number of exoplanets out there.
So, naming each one individually would be really hard.
While the numbers may seem really odd, there is a method to naming, I mean numbering exoplanets.
The most common name, okay I'm just going to say name, is something like HD then a string of numbers and then a lower-case letter.
The HD and the number are the name of the star the exoplanet orbits.
It tells where you find the star in the night sky.
Astronomers already have catalogued these stars in a giant database.
The lowercase letter at the end tells you the order in which the exoplanet was discovered for that star.
The first one gets a "b."
The next gets a "c" and so on.
If astronomers find a whole bunch of exoplanets around a star at the same time, then they're assigned letters based on the how close they orbit to the star.
By the way, they start with the lower letter b because the star itself is identified with a capitol letter A.
For more information about exoplanets, check out the Science Trek website.
You'll find it at Science Trek.org.
Exoplanets: How to Find an Exoplanet
Video has Closed Captions
Astronomers use the transit method to find exoplanets. (1m 4s)
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Science Trek is a local public television program presented by IdahoPTV
Major Funding by the Laura Moore Cunningham Foundation and the Idaho National Laboratory. Additional Funding by Sparklight, the Friends of Idaho Public Television and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.