Posted on by Jon Voisey

Searching for Exoplanet Oceans More Challenging Than First Thought

Earth Observation of sun-glinted ocean and clouds
Earth Observation of sun-glinted ocean and clouds. Credit: NASA

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As astronomers continue to discover more exoplanets, the focus has slowly shifted from what sizes such planets are, to what they’re made of. First attempts have been made at determining atmospheric composition but one of the most desirable finds wouldn’t be the gasses in the atmosphere, but the detection of liquid water which is a key ingredient for the formation of life as we know it. While this is a monumental challenge, various methods have been proposed, but a new study suggests that these methods may be overly optimistic.

One of the most promising methods was proposed in 2008 and considered the reflective properties of water oceans. In particular when the angle between a light source (a parent star) and an observer is small, the light is not reflected well and ends up being scattered into the ocean. However, if the angle is large, the light is reflected. This effect can be easily seen during sunset over the ocean when the angle is nearly 180° and the ocean waves are tipped with bright reflections and is known as specular reflection. This effect is illustrated in orbit around our own planet above and such effects were used on Saturn’s moon Titan to reveal the presence of lakes.

Translating this to exoplanets, this would imply that planets with oceans should reflect more light during their crescent phases than their gibbous phase. Thus, they proposed, we might detect oceans on extrasolar planets by the “glint” on their oceans. Even better, light reflecting off a smoother surface like water tends to be more polarized than it might be otherwise.

The first criticisms of this hypothesis came in 2010 when other astronomers pointed out that similar effects may be produced on planets with a thick cloud layer could mimic this glinting effect. Thus, the method would likely be invalid unless astronomers were able to accurately model the atmosphere to take its contribution into consideration.

The new paper brings additional challenges by further considering the way material would likely be distributed. Specifically, it is quite likely that planets in the habitable zones without oceans may have polar ice caps (like Mars) which are more reflective all around. Since the polar regions make up a larger percentage of the illuminated body in the crescent phase than during the gibbous, this would naturally lead to a relative diminishing in overall reflectivity and could give false positives for a glint.

This would be especially true for planets that are more oblique (are “tilted”). In this case, the poles receive more sunlight which makes the reflections from any ice caps even more pronounced and mask the effect further. The authors of the new study conclude that this as well as the other difficulties “severely limits the utility of specular reflection for detecting oceans on exoplanets.”

Posted on by Jon Voisey

New Evidence For Fomalhaut Planets

Fomalhaut's exoplanet (NASA, ESA, P. Kalas (UC, Berkeley))

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The planetary system of the star Fomalhaut has been one of intense debate over the past few years. In 2008, it was announced that a large, Saturn mass planet shepherd a large dust ring and was spotted in visual images from Hubble. But in late 2011 infrared observations called the previous detections into question. Now joining the discussion is the recently completed Atacama Large Millimeter/sub-millimeter Array (ALMA). This radio observatory suggests that there may be more planets than previously detected.

ALMA sits in the high Atacama desert in northern Chile. This dry location is ideal for linking together the 66 radio dishes (although only 15 were used in the new observations) to give unprecedented resolution. With this new set of eyes, astronomers from the University of Florida and Bryant Space Science Center were able to study the fine details in the dust ring. These details were then compared to various models of how rings should function in different conditions.

The dust ring has several characteristics that any explanation would have to reproduce. The first was that the ring is slightly oval shaped. It must be exceptionally thin and have a sharp cutoff both on the interior and exterior edges. If the previously claimed planet, Fomalhaut b, were the only one present, it could not account for the outer edge of the disk being sharply truncated as well as the inner edge. Another possibility is that the ring is simply newly formed as the result of a collision between two planets and has not yet had time to dissipate giving it the sharp appearance. However, the authors note that planets at such a distance from the parent star shouldn’t have high enough relative velocities to crush them so finely.

Since neither of these explanations are sufficient, the team proposes that there are two planets that shepherd the ring: One interior and one exterior to it. Within our own solar system, we see similar effects in Uranus’ ε ring which is constrained by the moons Cordelia and Ophelia. Similarly, Saturn’s F ring is shepherded by Prometheus and Pandora. By varying the mass of hypothetical planets in the models, the authors could create a ring similar to that seen around Fomalhaut. However, the best fit was created by a pair of planets that were less than three times the mass of the Earth which would mean that the proposed mass for Fomalhaut b was significantly too high, further casting doubt on its existence. Additionally, the proposed orbit of Fomalhaut bwas 10 AU off from the orbit of the hypothetical interior shepherd planet.

Ultimately, these two planets are only hypothetical. Detecting them in a more direct fashion will prove challenging. The fact that their orbits wouldn’t be very close to line of sight as well as their distance from the star would make radial velocity detection impossible. Given the low proposed mass and the distance, they would reflect too little light to be able to be directly observed with current telescopes.

Posted on by Jon Voisey

“Proplyd-like” Objects Discovered in Cygnus OB2

Hubble image of a Proplyd-like object in Cygnus OB2. Credit: Z. Levay and L. Frattare, STScI
Hubble image of a Proplyd-like object in Cygnus OB2. Credit: Z. Levay and L. Frattare, STScI

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The well known Orion Nebula is perhaps the most well known star forming regions in the sky. The four massive stars known as the trapezium illuminate the massive cloud of gas and dust busily forming into new stars providing astronomers a stunning vista to explore stellar formation and young systems. In the region are numerous “protoplanetary disks” or proplyds for short which are regions of dense gas around a newly formed star. Such disks are common around young stars and have recently been discovered in an even more massive, but less well known star forming region within our own galaxy: Cygnus OB2.

Ten times more massive than its more famous counterpart in Orion, Cygnus OB2 is a star forming region that is a portion of a larger collection of gas known as Cygnus X. The OB2 region is notable because, like the Orion nebula, it contains several exceptionally massive stars including OB2-12 which is one of the most massive and luminous stars within our own galaxy. In total the region has more than 65 O class stars, the most massive category in astronomers classification system. Yet for as bright as these stars are, Cygnus OB2 is not a popular target for amateur astronomers due to its position behind a dark obscuring cloud which blocks the majority of visible light.

But like many objects obscured in this manner, infrared and radio telescopes have been used to pierce the veil and study the region. The new study, led by Nicholas Wright at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, combines infrared and visual observations from the Hubble Space telescope. The observations revealed 10 objects similar in appearance to the Orion proplyds. The objects had long tails being blown away from the central mass due to the strong stellar winds from the central cluster similar to how proplyds in Orion point away from the trapezium. On the closer end, the objects were brightly ionized.

Yet despite the similarities, the objects may not be true proplyds. Instead, they may be regions known as “evaporating gaseous globules” or EGGs for short. The key difference between the two is whether or not a star has formed. EGGs are overdense regions within a larger nebula. Their size and density makes them resistant to the ionization and stripping that blows away the rest of the nebula. Because the interior regions are shielded from these dispersive forces, the center may collapse to form a star which is the requirement for a proplyd. So which are these?

In general, the newly discovered objects are far larger than those typically found in Orion. While Orion proplyds are nearly symmetric across an axis directed towards the central cluster, the OB2 objects have twisted tails with complex shapes. The objects are 18-113 thousand AU (1 AU = the distance between the Earth and Sun = 93 million miles = 150 million km) across making them significantly larger than the Orion proplyds and even larger than the largest known proplyds in NGC 6303.

Yet as different as they are, the current theoretical understanding of how proplyds work doesn’t put them beyond the plausible range. In particular, the size for a true proplyd is limited by how much stripping it feels from the central stars. Since these objects are further away from OB2-12 and the other massive stars than the Orion proplyds are from the trapezium, they should feel less dispersive forces and should be able to grow as large as is seen. Attempting to pierce the thick dust the objects contain and discover if central stars were present, the team examined the objects in the infrared and radio. Of the ten objects, seven had strong candidates central stellar sources.

Still, the stark differences make conclusively identifying the objects as either EGGs or proplyds difficult. Instead, the authors suggest that these objects may be the first discovery of an inbetween stage: old, highly evolved EGGs which have nearly formed stars making them more akin to young proplyds. If further evidence supports this, this finding would help fill in the scant observational details surrounding stellar formation. This would allow astronomers to more thoroughly test theories which are also tied to the understanding of how planetary systems form.

Posted on by Jon Voisey

The Contributor to SN 2011fe

Astrophoto: Supernova PTF11kly in M101 by Rick Johnson
Supernova PTF11kly in M101. Credit: Rick Johnson

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When discovered on August 24, 2011, supernova 2011fe was the closest supernova since the famous SN 1987A. Located in the relatively nearby Pinwheel galaxy (M101), it was a prime target for scientists to study since the host galaxy has been well studied and many high resolution images exist from before the explosion, allowing astronomers to search them for information on the star that led to the eruption. But when astronomers, led by Weidong Li, at the University of California, Berkeley searched, what they found defied the typically accepted explanations for supernovae of the same type as 2011fe.

SN 2011fe was a type 1a supernova. This class of supernova is expected to be caused by a white dwarf which accumulates mass contributed by a companion star. The general expectation is that the companion star is a star evolving off the main sequence. As it does, it swells up, and matter spills onto the white dwarf. If this pushes the dwarf’s mass over the limit of 1.4 times the mass of the Sun, the star can no longer support the weight and it undergoes a runaway collapse and rebound, resulting in a supernova.

Fortunately, the swollen up stars, known as red giants, become exceptionally bright due to their large surface area. The eighth brightest star in our own sky, Betelgeuse, is one of these red giants. This high brightness means that these objects are visible from large distances, potentially even in galaxies as distant as the Pinwheel. If so, the astronomers from Berkeley would be able to search archival images and detect the brighter red giant to study the system prior to the explosion.

But when the team searched the images from the Hubble Space Telescope which had snapped pictures through eight different filters, no star was visible at the location of the supernova. This finding follows a quick report from September which announced the same results, but with a much lower threshold for detection. The team followed up by searching images from the Spitzer infrared telescope which also failed to find any source at the proper location.

While this doesn’t rule out the presence of the contributing star, it does place constraints on its properties. The limit on brightness means that the contributor star could not have been a luminous red giant. Instead, the result favors another model of mass donation known as a double-degenerate model

In this scenario, two white dwarfs (both supported by degenerate electrons) orbit one another in a tight orbit. Due to relativistic effects, the system will slowly lose energy and eventually the two stars will become close enough that one will become disrupted enough to spill mass onto the other. If this mass transfer pushes the primary over the 1.4 solar mass limit, it would trigger the same sort of explosion.

This double degenerate model does not exclusively rule out the possibility of red giants contributing to type Ia supernovae, but recently other evidence has revealed missing red giants in other cases.

Posted on by Jon Voisey

Exomoons? Kepler‘s On The Hunt

An artist impression of an exomoon orbiting an exoplanet, could the exoplanet's wobble help astronomers? (Andy McLatchie)

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Recently, I posted an article on the feasibility of detecting moons around extrasolar planets. It was determined that exceptionally large moons (roughly Earth mass moons or more), may well be detectable with current technology. Taking up that challenge, a team of astronomers led by David Kipping from the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics has announced they will search publicly available Kepler data to determine if the planet-finding mission may have detected such objects.

The team has titled the project “The Hunt of Exomoons with Kepler” or HEK for short. This project searches for moons through two main methods: the transits such moons may cause and the subtle tugs they may have on previously detected planets.

Of course, the possibility of finding such a large moon requires that one be present in the first place. Within our own solar system, there are no examples of moons of the necessary size for detection with present equipment. The only objects we could detect of that size exist independently as planets. But should such objects exist as moons?

Astronomers best simulations of how solar systems form and develop don’t rule it out. Earth sized objects may migrate within forming solar systems only to be captured by a gas giant. If that happens, some of the new “moons” would not survive; their orbits would be unstable, crashing them into the planet or would be ejected again after a short time. But estimates suggest that around 50% of captured moons would survive, and their orbits circularized due to tidal forces. Thus, the potential for such large moons does exist.

The transit method is the most direct for detecting the exomoons. Just as Kepler detects planets passing in front of the disc of the parent star, causing a temporary drop in brightness, so too could it spot a transit of a sufficiently large moon.

The trickier method is finding the more subtle effect of the moon tugging the planet, changing when the transit begins and ends. This method is often known as Timing Transit Variation (TTV) and has also been used to infer the presence of other planets in the system creating similar tugs. Additionally, the same tugs exerted while the planet is crossing the disk of the star will change the duration of the transit. This effect is known as Timing Duration Variations (TDV). The combination of these two variations has the potential to give a great deal of information about potential moons including the moon’s mass, the distance from the planet, and potentially the direction the moon orbits.

Currently, the team is working on coming up with a list of planet systems that Kepler has discovered that they wish to search first. Their criteria are that the systems have sufficient data taken, that it be of high quality, and that the planets be sufficiently large to capture such large moons.

As the team notes

As the HEK project progresses, we hope to answer the question as to whether large moons, possibly even Earth-like habitable moons, are common in the Galaxy or not. Enabled by the equisite photometry of Kepler, exomoons may soon move from theoretical musings to objects of empirical investigation.

Posted on by Jon Voisey

Echoes From η Carinae’s Great Eruption

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During the mid 1800’s, the well known star η Carinae underwent an enormous eruption becoming for a time, the second brightest star in the sky. Although astronomers at the time did not yet have the technology to study one of the largest eruptions in recent history in depth, astronomers from the Space Telescope Science Institute recently discovered that light echoes are just now reaching us. This discovery allows astronomers to use modern instruments to study η Carinae as it was between 1838 and 1858 when it underwent its Great Eruption.

V838 Mon (Credit: NASA, European Space Agency and Howard Bond (STScI))
Light echoes have been made famous in recent years by the dramatic example of V838 Monocerotis. While V838 Mon looks like an expanding shell of gas, what is actually depicted is light reflecting off shells of gas and dust that was thrown off earlier in the star’s life. The extra distance the light had to travel to strike the shell, before being reflected towards observers on Earth, means that the light arrives later. In the case of η Carinae, nearly 170 years later!

The reflected light has its properties changed by the motion of the material off which it reflects. In particular, the light shows a notable blueshift, telling astronomers that the material itself is traveling 210 km/sec. This observation fits with theoretical predictions of eruptions similar to the type η Carinae is thought to have undergone. However, the light echo has also highlighted some discrepancies between expectation and observation.

Typically, η Carinae’s eruption is classified as a “supernova impostor”. This title is fitting since the eruptions create a large change in the overall brightness. However, although these events may release 10% of the total energy of a typical supernova or more, the star remains intact. The main model to explain such eruptions is that a sudden increase in the star’s energy output causes some of the outer layers to be blown off in an opaque wind. This shell of material is so thick, that it gives a large increase in the effective surface area from which light is emitted, thereby increasing the overall brightness.

However, for this to happen, models predict that the temperature of the star prior to the eruption needs to be at least 7,000 K. Analyzing the reflected light from the eruption places the temperature of η Carinae at the time of the eruption at a much lower 5,000 K. This would suggest that the favored model for such events is incorrect and that another model, involving an energetic blast was (a mini-supernova), may be the true culprit, at least in η Carinae’s case.

Yet this observation is somewhat at odds with observations made in the years following the eruption. As spectrography came into use, astronomers in 1870 visually noticed emission lines in the star’s spectrum which is more typical in hotter stars. In 1890, η Carinae had a smaller eruption and a photographic spectrum put the temperature around 6,000 K. While this may not accurately reflect the case of the Great Eruption, it is still puzzling how the star’s temperature could change so quickly and may also indicate that the favored model of the opaque-wind model is a better fit for later times or the smaller eruption, which would suggest two different mechanisms causing similar results in the same object on short timescales.

Either way, η Carinae is a marvelous object. The team has also identified several other areas in the shell surrounding the star which appear to be brightening and undergoing their own echoes which the team promises to continue to observe which would allow them to verify their findings.

Posted on by Jon Voisey

How Can Growing Galaxies Stay Silent?

Andromeda Galaxy

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Beginning around 2005, astronomers began discovering the presence of very large galaxies at a distance of around 10 billion lightyears. But while these galaxies were large, they didn’t appear to have a similarly large number of formed stars. Given that astronomers expect galaxies to grow through mergers and mergers tend to trigger star formation, the presence of such large, undeveloped galaxies seemed odd. How could galaxies grow so much, yet have so few stars?

One of the leading propositions is that the galaxies have undergone frequent mergers, but each one was very small and didn’t encourage large scale star formation. In other words, instead of mergers between galaxies of similar size, large galaxies developed quickly and early in the universe, and then tended to accumulate through the integration of minor, dwarf galaxies. While this solution is straightforward, testing it is difficult since the galaxies in question are at vast distances and detecting the minor galaxies as they are devoured would require exceptional observations.

Seeking to test this hypothesis, a team of astronomers led by Andrew Newman from the California Institute of Technology combined observations from Hubble and the United Kingdom Infra-Red Telescope (UKIRT), to search for these diminutive companions. The team examined over 400 galaxies that didn’t display signs of active star formation (called “quiet” galaxies) in search of possible companion galaxies from distances of 10 billion light years to a relatively close 2 billion lightyears in order to determine how this minor merger rate has evolved over time.

From their study, they determined that around 15% of quiet galaxies had a nearby counterpart that had at least 10% the mass of the larger galaxy. This took into account the possibility that some galaxies may have been more distant but along the line of sight by ensuring that both galaxies had similar redshifts. Over time, the partner galaxies became rarer suggesting that they were becoming rarer as more were consumed by the larger brethren. Using this as a rate at which mergers must occur, the team was able to answer the question of whether or not these minor mergers could account for the galaxy growth discovered six years earlier.

For galaxies closer than a distance of roughly 8 billion light years, the rate of minor mergers was able to completely explain the overall growth of galaxies. However, for the growth rate of galaxies at times earlier than this, such minor mergers could only account for around half of the apparent growth.

The team proposes several reasons this may be the case. Firstly, many of the basic assumptions could be flawed. Teams may have overestimated the sizes of the massive galaxies, or underestimated the rate of star formation. These key properties were often derived from photometric surveys which are not as reliable as spectroscopic observations. In the future, if better observations can be made, these values may be revised and the problem may resolve itself. The other option is that there are simply additional processes at work that astronomers have yet to understand. Either way, the question of how growing galaxies avoid advertising their growth is unanswered.

Posted on by Jon Voisey

NSV 11749 – Born Again and Grown Old

Not a black dwarf ... yet (white dwarf Sirius B)

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In 1996, a Japanese amateur astronomer discovered a new star in the constellation Sagittarius. Dubbed V4334 Sgr, astronomers initially expected it to be a typical novae, but closer examination revealed it to be a previously predicted but unseen event known as a “Very Late Thermal Pulse” (VLTP), the last hurrah of a white dwarf as hydrogen from the exterior of the star is carried to lower depths where one last gasp of fusion occurs. Astronomers then identified a second star, V605 Aql, that had been caught undergoing a VLTP in 1919. Recently, astronomers from the National University of La Plata, in Argentina, have claimed to have uncovered a third star undergoing this rare event.

It has been estimated that roughly one star every year ends its main sequence life and heads down the path of making a planetary nebula. Many of them won’t become convective white dwarfs that could turn into stars that should undergo a VLTP, but conservative estimates suggest that roughly 10% should. At such a rate, there should be roughly one star every decade that undergoes this phase. Since the stars have already shed their outer layers, the rejuvenated fusion is not diminished by them, and these stars shine exceptionally brightly making them detectable through most of the galaxy. Yet prior to this new identification, only two have been discovered which suggests that many objects historically identified as novae may truly have been stars similar to V4334 Sgr and V605 Aql.

In 2005, David Williams, a member of the American Association of Variable Star Observers, gathered images from the Harvard College Astronomical Plate collection. This massive collection of over 500,000 photographic plates, was the result of an early and long running survey that photographed great portions of the sky repeatedly from 1885 until 1993. This collection allowed him to reconstruct the changes in brightness the star NSV 11749 underwent during its outburst.

The star first became visible on the photographic plates in 1899. It peaked in brightness in 1903 and remained at that brightness for several years, until 1907 when it began to fade away again. The amount of time it took to brighten as well as the total change in brightness were similar to the previously identified VLTP stars. Over the 15 years since it first became detectable, it disappeared from images several times, another feature seen in V4334 Sgr and V605 Aql. The sudden disappearance has been explained by ejections of carbon from the star which cools and forms small dust grains which are effective at blocking light in the visible portion of the spectrum until they disperse.

However, two key differences stands out: The overall time before the NSV 11749 faded was roughly twice as long as for V605 Aql and V4335 Aql. The authors suggest that this may be due to a different mass of the white dwarf behind the outbursts. If the two previously identified VLTP stars were close in mass, they would likely have similar properties, while NSV 11749 could potentially have a different mass. The second discrepancy was the presence of a young planetary nebula. In both of the previously identified cases, the stars were the center of nebulae, but infrared images of the star did not reveal any nebula or remaining dust from the previous outburst. Authors again attribute this to a different evolutionary timescale due to the star’s potentially different mass.

While this tentative new classification is hardly conclusive, it is a reminder that astronomers have only just begun to understand this phase of stellar evolution and there is a great need for further examples to help refine models. The evolution of V4334 Sgr moved roughly 100 times faster than simulations had predicted, prompting revisions to the models. Certainly, similar changes will be necessary as more VLTP stars are discovered. This era of a star’s life is important to astronomers because the light obscuring carbon ejection is expected to be a major source of this important element.

Posted on by Jon Voisey

Quadruply Lensed Dwarf Galaxy 12.8 Billion Light Years Away

Galaxy Cluster MACS J0329.6-0211 lenses several background galaxies including a distant dwarf galaxy. CREDIT: A. Zitrin, et al.
Galaxy Cluster MACS J0329.6-0211 lenses several background galaxies including a distant dwarf galaxy. CREDIT: A. Zitrin, et al.

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Gravitational lensing is a powerful tool for astronomers that allows them to explore distant galaxies in far more detail than would otherwise be allowed. Without this technique, galaxies at the edge of the visible universe are little more than tiny blobs of light, but when magnified dozens of times by foreground clusters, astronomers are able to explore the internal structural properties more directly.

Recently, astronomers at the University of Heidelberg discovered a gravitational lensed galaxy that ranked among the most distant ever seen. Although there’s a few that beat this one out in distance, this one is remarkable for being a rare quadruple lens.

The images for this remarkable discovery were taken using the Hubble Space Telescope in August and October of this year, using a total of 16 different colored filters as well as additional data from the Spitzer infrared telescope. The foreground cluster, MACS J0329.6-0211, is some 4.6 billion light years distant. In the above image, the background galaxy has been split into four images, labelled by the red ovals and marked as 1.1 – 1.4. They are enlarged in the upper right.

Assuming that the mass of the foreground cluster is concentrated around the galaxies that were visible, the team attempted to reverse the effects the cluster would have on the distant galaxy, which would reverse the distortions. The restored image, also corrected for redshift, is shown in the lower box in the upper right corner.

After correcting for these distortions, the team estimated that the total mass of the distant galaxy is only a few billion times the mass of the Sun. In comparison, the Large Magellanic Cloud, a dwarf satellite to our own galaxy, is roughly ten billion solar masses. The overall size of the galaxy was determined to be small as well. These conclusions fit well with expectations of galaxies in the early universe which predict that the large galaxies in today’s universe were built from the combination of many smaller galaxies like this one in the distant past.

The galaxy also conforms to expectations regarding the amount of heavy elements which is significantly lower than stars like the Sun. This lack of heavy elements means that there should be little in the way of dust grains. Such dust tends to be a strong block of shorter wavelengths of light such as ultraviolet and blue. Its absence helps give the galaxy its blue tint.

Star formation is also high in the galaxy. The rate at which they predict new stars are being born is somewhat higher than in other galaxies discovered around the same distance, but the presence of brighter clumps in the restored image suggest the galaxy may be undergoing some interactions, driving the formation of new stars.

Posted on by Jon Voisey

Forget Exomoons. Let’s talk Exorings

An artist impression of an exomoon orbiting an exoplanet, could the exoplanet's wobble help astronomers? (Andy McLatchie)

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In an article earlier this month, I discussed the potential for discovering moons orbiting extrasolar planets. I’d used an image of an exoplant system with rings, prompting one reader to ask if those would be possible to detect. Apparently he wasn’t the only person wondering. A new paper looks more at exomoons and explores exoring systems.

The idea of detecting rings around distant planets dates back to at least 2004. Then, Barnes & Fortney suggested that rings would be potentially detectable from the eclipse they would cause if the photometric precision were as one part in ten-thousand. This is a big challenge, but one that’s more than met by telescopes like Kepler today. But for this to be possible, the rings needed to block the most light possible, meaning that they would have to be viewed face on, instead of edge on.

Fortunately, a study this year by Schlichting & Chang demonstrated that, even if the planet’s spin is aligned with the plane of orbit, it’s quite possible that the rings will be significantly warped due to gravitational interactions with the star.

So it should be possible, but what do astronomers need to look for?

The new paper attempts to answer this question by simulating light curves for a hypothetical ringed exoplanet. The first result is that the extra area of the star’s surface covered by the rings reduces the light detected. However, this is difficult to disentangle from the effects of simply having a larger planet that blocks the light.

Simulated light curve for exoplanet system with rings vs model lacking rings. Credit: Tusnski & Valio
Simulated light curve for exoplanet system with rings vs model lacking rings. Credit: Tusnski & Valio

A second effect is based on the shape of the light curve (a graph of the brightness as a function of time) as the planet begins and ends the transit. In short, the semi-transparent nature of the rings makes the drop in brightness softer, rounding off the edges of the light curve. When modeled against a planet that lacked rings, this would be readily detectable for an instrument like Kepler.

With such precision, the team suggests that Kepler should be more than capable of detecting a ring system similar in size and nature to those of Saturn. However, other transit finding telescopes, such as CoRoT, would mistake the rings for a slightly larger planet.

In the future, the team plans to take their model and reexamine data from Kepler and CoRoT to search for both rings and moons.