Exoplanets

In Our Time

BBC

History

4.6 • 9.2K Ratings

🗓️ 3 October 2013

⏱️ 42 minutes

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Summary

Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss exoplanets. Astronomers have speculated about the existence of planets beyond our solar system for centuries. Although strenuous efforts were made to find such planets orbiting distant stars, it was not until the 1990s that instruments became sophisticated enough to detect such remote objects. In 1992 Dale Frail and Aleksander Wolszczan discovered the first confirmed exoplanets: two planets orbiting the pulsar PSR B1257+12. Since then, astronomers have discovered more than 900 exoplanets, and are able to reach increasingly sophisticated conclusions about what they look like - and whether they might be able to support life. Recent data from experiments such as NASA's space telescope Kepler indicates that such planets may be far more common than previously suspected. With: Carolin Crawford Gresham Professor of Astronomy and a member of the Institute of Astronomy at the University of Cambridge Don Pollacco Professor of Astronomy at the University of Warwick Suzanne Aigrain Lecturer in Astrophysics at the University of Oxford and a Fellow of All Souls College. Producer: Thomas Morris.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Thank you for downloading this episode of In Our Time for more details about In Our Time
0:04.1	and for our terms of use, please go to bbc.co.uk slash radio4.
0:09.0	I hope you enjoy the program.
0:11.8	Hello, the Star 51 Pegasus is part of the Constellation Pegasus,
0:16.3	and at this time of year, in clear conditions, it's just about visible from the northern hemisphere.
0:21.0	To the naked eyes, an unremarkable little star,
0:23.5	but in 1995 astronomers discovered something extraordinary about it.
0:27.5	51 Pegasus is orbited by a planet.
0:30.6	That discovery 18 years ago was the first time a planet had ever been detected
0:35.0	orbiting a star similar to our own Sun.
0:38.2	Planets orbiting stars outside our solar system are known as exoplanets.
0:42.4	Less than 20 years after the discovery of the first exoplanet,
0:45.8	scientists have confirmed the existence of more than 900 of them,
0:49.4	with over a thousand other possible candidates also identified.
0:53.0	So how is it possible to take bodies so distant
0:55.8	that they're invisible to even the most powerful telescopes?
0:58.9	What can we learn about them?
1:00.4	And what are the chances of finding out
1:02.4	our finding one that's capable of sustaining life?
1:05.6	When we do discuss exoplanets are Carolyn Crawford,
1:08.7	Gresham Professor of Astronomy,
1:10.5	and a member of the Institute of Astronomy at the University of Cambridge.
	...

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