The new worlds : extrasolar planets

✍ Scribed by Casoli, Fabienne; Encrenaz, Thérèse

• Publisher: Springer
• Year: 2007
• Tongue: English, French
• Leaves: 193
• Series: Springer-Praxis books in popular astronomy
• Category: Library

✦ Synopsis

Offering an engaging and complete story of the hunt for new worlds, this volume fully details the detection and exploration of extrasolar planets. It examines the very wide range of extrasolar planets that have been discovered during the past ten years and looks at what can be learned about such planets by studying the bodies in our own solar system. It also discusses the formation of planetary systems, the way in which such systems may evolve and the final systems of planets that result. In addition, the authors demonstrate how life might evolve on an extrasolar planet and how such life might be detected.

✦ Table of Contents

Content: Author's preface --
1. Extrasolar planets : the holy grail of astronomers --
1.1. Twelve years of discoveries and surprises --
1.2. First clues --
1.3. The solar system : an atypical planetary system? --
1.4. The big question --
2. In search of exoplanets --
2.1. The plurality of inhabited worlds --
2.2. Problems with direct imaging --
2.3. Barnard's Star : a disappointment --
2.4. Planets around pulsars --
2.5. The key to success : velocimetry --
2.6. The ins and outs of velocimetric detection --
2.7. 51 Pegasi b : th first discovery --
2.8. When planets cross the disks of stars --
2.9. Observing a planetary transit --
2.10. The gravitational microlensing method --
3. Twelve years of discovery --
3.1. A very selective method of discovery --
3.2. Exoplanets : a heavyweight family? --
3.3. Hot Jupiters and Pegasids --
3.4. Somewhat eccentric planets --
3.5. Planetary systems --
3.6. Cannibal stars? --
3.7. Dark hints of planets --
3.8. Close-up of a hot Jupiter : HD 209458 b --
3.9. How many stars have planets? --
3.10. Failed stars or supermassive planets? 4. What do we learn from our own solar system? --
4.1. Early theories : the seventeenth century onwards --
4.2. How old is the solar system? --
4.3. Looking at nearby stars --
4.4. The protoplanetary disk : the current picture --
4.5. The ice line --
4.6. Terrestrial and giant planets --
4.7. From Jupiter to Neptune : four different worlds --
4.8. Terrestrial planets : divergent destinies --
4.9. Between terrestrials and giants : the missing planet? --
4.10. The origin of comets : the Kuiper Belt and the Oort Cloud --
5. The formation of planetary systems --
5.1. Star-birth --
5.2. Inside protoplanetary disks --
5.3. Planetary embryos --
5.4. Recipes for a giant planet --
5.5. Migrating planets --
5.6. Survival strategies --
5.7. Planets around pulsars --
5.8. Stability in planetary systems --
5.9. Disks of debris --
5.10. The solar system : an exception? --
5.11. The spectra of exoplanets --
5.12. Towards new types of exoplanet. 6. Life in the universe --
6.1. How do we define life? --
6.2. Why life on Earth? --
6.3. Searching for life on Mars --
6.4. The Earth : a habitable world --
6.5. Liquid water in the past history of Mars? --
6.6. Europa and Titan : harbouring life in the outer solar system? --
6.7. The first building bricks : interstellar chemistry --
6.8. The habitability zone in planetary systems --
6.9. The search for exoEarths --
6.10. Detecting life on Earth --
6.11. Detecting life on exoplanets --
6.12. The search for extraterrestrial civilisations --
7. Future projects --
7.1. Observing the formation of planets in protoplanetary disks --
7.2. The future for velocimetry --
7.3. The astrometry of tomorrow --
7.4. ExoEarths in transit --
7.5. Seeing exoplanets at long last --
7.6. Detecting exoEarths with interferometry --
Appendix 1 : The eight planets of the solar system --
Appendix 2 : The first 200 extrasolar planets --
Glossary --
Bibliography --
Index.