Many nearby Earth- exoplanets could be hiding in plain sight

[Admin]

The universe is populated with stars that live in pairs, and these systems could mean double trouble for scientists wanting to find Earth-like planets.

Many nearby Earth- exoplanets could be hiding in plain sight : Read more

 

[Catastrophe]

"The scientists found that, upon closer inspection, some of the would-be stars in the sample were actually binary stellar systems. In addition, the researchers found that stellar pairs may disguise Earth-like exoplanets from the watchful eyes of missions like TESS."

That could adversely affect the factors in some equations!

Cat

 

[rod]

I read about this binary star system with potential for many more earth size exoplanets yet to be found. Are we missing other Earths?, https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/06/210628170551.htm

The research paper cited, Speckle Observations of TESS Exoplanet Host Stars: Understanding the Binary Exoplanet Host Star Orbital Period Distribution, https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3847/1538-3881/abdec6, 04-March-2021. "...For the detected binaries, the distribution of stellar mass ratio is consistent with that of the standard Raghavan distribution and may show a decrease in high-q systems as the binary separation increases. The distribution of binary orbital periods, however, is not consistent with the standard Ragahavan model, and our observations support the premise that exoplanet-hosting stars with binary companions have, in general, wider orbital separations than field binaries. We find that exoplanet-hosting binary star systems show a distribution peaking near 100 au, higher than the 40–50 au peak that is observed for field binaries. This fact led to earlier suggestions that planet formation is suppressed in close binaries."

My observation. 1" angular resolution at 100 pc = 100 au. I note this too based upon the sciencedaily.com report. The binary star systems with earth size exoplanets <=2 earth radii are difficult to detect according to the report. The interpretation is that many binary star systems could have exoplanets in this radii size undetected at the present. The NASA exoplanet archive site (https://exoplanetarchive.ipac.caltech.edu/index.html) lists 385 exoplanets found at binary star systems. 55 Cnc has 5 listed and is a good example of binary star sytems with exoplanets known. The two stellar components are 1065 au apart according to Wikipedia. It remains to be demonstrated if binary star systems where the two stars are separated by <=100 au contain exoplanets in the size range <=2 earth radii and if the population exists.

 

[Helio]

I'm a little puzzled why the 2nd star "fills in the light" blocked in the transit? Any transit will cause a light dip, but it would, admittedly, smaller than expected for a binary.

But in a binary, I think most transits would be in the plane of the binary orbiting plane, thus two dips are likely.

But at 100 AU, time is a big problem given the lengthy orbital periods.

 

[Catastrophe]

"I'm a little puzzled why the 2nd star "fills in the light" blocked in the transit?"

Me too, or should I say "I, also"? I can't see reflected light from the binary overcoming the blocking of light from the primary (during transit).

Cat