New planets

[torto2]

Dear All!<br /><br />Sorry if I am too ignorant, but I am curious as well.<br /><br />If we have a group of stars almost lined up, is it possible to infer any planet orbiting the closest star by the occultation of the most distant star in this group?<br /><br />Thank you, Torto

 

[zavvy]

Not necessarily....

 

[thalion]

Unlikely, but theoretically possible. The stars would have to be extremely close together to be able to confirm an eclipse by a planet orbiting one of the stars. Such a coincidence must be extremely rare.

 

[torto2]

Thank you for your prompt answer.<br /><br />Yes, it seems unlikely, but I was thinking on several photos of the same region every hour (I realize that the earth movement may spoil my hopes) and superimpose them until a star migth be missing. Well that would only work on a dense region anyway.<br /><br />Tks, Torto

 

[Leovinus]

If you went to the nearest start, 4 light years away I reckon, and look back at our solar system, how small would the orbit of Pluto appear to be? Would it be big enough to see if it were bright enough? <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

 

[thalion]

Welcome. <img src="/images/icons/smile.gif" /><br /><br />Re Leo:<br />It's easy to calculate the apparent size of any orbit if you know the parallax of a given star:<br /><br />a / p = d , where<br /><br />a = distance in AUs<br />p = distance in parsecs<br />d = angular distance in arcseconds<br /><br />At its closest, Pluto is about 30 AUs from the Sun. The nearest star is about 1.3 parsecs away, so the angular distance would--in an idealized case--be:<br /><br />30 / 1.3 = 23 arcseconds<br /><br />--which would be easily resolvable if--and only if--Pluto were a very bright object.

 

[alokmohan]

Transit is valuable process and scientists are using this process.