Searching For Planets

Reported May 2007

SANTA CRUZ, Calif., (Ivanhoe Broadcast News) -- There are 209 known planets outside our solar system, but there are even more out there, and astronomers need help finding them.

Greg Laughlin, Ph.D., an astronomer at the University of California in Santa Cruz, says anyone can help. He explains, "You don't have to have any experience or knowledge of astronomy, just an interest is all that you really require to help us out."

University of California student Rion Parsons is happy to help look for other worlds. All he needs is a computer, the Internet, and some spare time. Parsons told Ivanhoe, "The whole process of looking is really fun."

The out of this world project is called Systemic. It's a free web program that lets anyone hunt outer-space data to find our cosmic neighbors, which is not a one man job. Dr. Laughlin explains, "The kinds of computations that we need to do are computations that require a lot of computer power. They can be farmed out to a large number of individual computers."

The process works like this: stars, like our sun, reflect light off orbiting planets. Planets also tug on stars, causing them to wobble. Software measures the light and wobble combinations and compares them to known planet systems. Users submit the information to confirm a new planet.

Laughlin explained why it is fun for users. He says, "If you find a planet that hasn't been announced and then later find that the data supports your planet, then you have a real thrill of discovery."

More than 4,000 possible planets have been submitted, and four are awaiting confirmation. Parsons is still searching. He says, "I haven't found anything too amazing yet, but, you know, keep trying."

The American Astronomical Society contributed to the information contained in the TV portion of this report.

Click here to Go Inside This Science or contact:

University of California at Santa Cruz
Marcus Woo, Public Information
831-459-2495
mwoo@ucsc.edu

American Astronomical Society
Washington, DC 20009-1231
202-328-2010
http://www.aas.org
aas@aas.org

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