Extrasolar Planets

Prof. Carson

Homework #2
Due February 13th, 2017

For all non-multiple-choice questions, please make sure that you justify your answers. If you
use information from outside sources, or receive help from a classmate, please make sure to
provide proper acknowledgment.

1. Imagine that a telescope captures an image of a new extrasolar planet. The planet at
this moment has a separation from the parent star of 10 astronomical units. What is the
planets orbital semimajor axis?
(a) 10 au
(b) <10 au
(c) >10 au
(d) the semimajor axis is unknown; the true semimajor axis is more likely to be <10 au
than >10 au
(e) the semimajor axis is unknown; the true semimajor axis is more likely to be >10 au
than <10 au

2. Imagine that you discover a smaller object orbiting a larger object. By monitoring the orbit,
you calculate that the larger object is 5 times more massive than the smaller object. Which
of the following are you most likely to have discovered?
(a) a gas giant planet orbiting a normal star
(b) a binary star
(c) an Earth-mass planet orbiting a very high mass star

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3. Approximately 65 extrasolar planets have been discovered with a mass between 1.0 and 1.5
M Jup . About 12 extrasolar planets have been found with masses less than 1 ME ar t h . What
may we conclude from this?
(a) there are likely more than 5 times as many extrasolar planets with mass between 1.0
and 1.5 M Jup as there are with masses < 1 ME ar t h .
(b) there are likely more than 5 times as many extrasolar planets with mass < 1 ME ar t h as
there are with masses between 1.0 and 1.5 M Jup .
(c) there are equal numbers of extrasolar planets with mass < 1 ME ar t h as there are with
masses between 1.0 and 1.5 M Jup .
(d) the provided information is unreliable for estimating the frequency of extrasolar plan-
ets for each mass range.

4. Kroupa (2001, MNRAS, 322, 231) argues that, for stellar masses between 0.08 and 0.5 M Sun ,
the number of stars per unit area, for a given mass range, can be described by:
1.3
m
(m) m = 0 Mm M Sun
Sun

where (m) m is equal to stars per unit area of the Milky Way disk for an interval of mass
m , 0 is a constant, and m is star mass. (All masses are in units of solar mass.) Let us hy-
pothetically assume that stars with a mass of 0.30.5 M Sun have twice as many planets per
star, on average, as do stars with a mass of 0.10.3 M Sun . Based on this hypothetical fre-
quency of planets per star, and the stellar initial mass function previously given, are there
more planets, in aggregate, around stars of mass 0.10.3 M Sun or around stars of mass 0.3
0.5 M Sun ?

5. A common method of detecting extrasolar planets is to take advantage of the Doppler

effect to measure the gravitational wobble of a star, as caused by an orbiting extrasolar
planet. Explain this method of planet detection using sentences and analogies that an
elementary school student would understand.