EXOPLANETS

Exoplanet or Extrasolar planet is a planet outside of our solar system that orbits a star.
The first scientific detection of an exoplanet was in 1988. However, the first confirmed detection
came in 1992; since then, and as of 1 August 2017, there have been 3,639 exoplanets, in
2,729 planetary systems and 612 multiple planetary systems, confirmed detections.
HARPS (since 2004) has discovered about a hundred exoplanets while the Kepler space
telescope (since 2009) has found more than two thousand. Kepler has also detected a few
thousand candidate planets, of which about 11% may be false positives. In several
cases, multiple planets have been observed around a star. About 1 in 5 Sun-like stars.have an
"Earth-sized. planet in the habitable zone. Assuming there are 200 billion stars in the Milky
Way, one can hypothesize that there are 11 billion potentially habitable Earth-sized planets in the
Milky Way, rising to 40 billion if planets orbiting the numerous red dwarfs are included.
The discovery of Exoplanets has intensified interest in the search for extraterrestrial life. There is
special interest in planets that orbit in a star's habitable zone, where it is possible for liquid water,
a prerequisite for life on Earth, to exist on the surface. The study of planetary habitability also
considers a wide range of other factors in determining the suitability of a planet for hosting life

Besides exoplanets, there are also rogue planets, which do not orbit any star and which tend to be
considered separately, especially if they are gas giants, in which case they are often counted, like
WISE 0855−0714, as sub-brown dwarfs. The rogue planets in the Milky Way possibly number
in the billions.
First Exoworld to Be Discovered

PSR B1257+12, previously designated PSR 1257+12, alternatively designated PSR

J1300+1240, also named Lich, is a pulsar located 2300 light years from the Sun in
the constellation of Virgo.

The pulsar has a planetary system with three known extrasolar planets, named "Draugr" (PSR
B1257+12 A), "Poltergeist" (PSR B1257+12 B) and "Phobetor" (PSR B1257+12 C),
respectively. They were both the first Extrasolar planets and the first pulsar planets to be
discovered; A and B in 1992 and C in 1994. A is the lowest mass planet yet discovered by any
observational technique, with somewhat less than twice the mass of Earth's moon.

PSR B1257+12 was discovered by the Polish astronomer Aleksander Wolszczan on 9 February
1990 using the Arecibo radio telescope. It is a millisecond pulsar, a kind of neutron star, with a
rotation period of 6.22 milliseconds (9,650 rpm), and was found to have anomalies in the
pulsation period, which led to investigations as to the cause of the irregular pulses. In 1992
Wolszczan and Dale Frail published a famous paper on the first confirmed discovery of planets
outside our solar system. Using refined methods one more planet was found orbiting this pulsar
in 1994.
The pulsar is estimated to have a mass of 1.4 M☉, which is typical for most neutron stars and
pulsars. The radius is also estimated to be around 10 kilometres (~0.000015 R☉), also common
for pulsars and neutron stars. The pulsar is extremely hot, with a surface temperature of either
less than or equal to around 28856 K. The pulsar formed about one to three billion years ago as
the result of a white dwarf transforming into a rapidly spinning neutron star during the process of
two white dwarfs merging with each other.
The discovery stimulated a search for planets orbiting other pulsars, but it turned out such planets
are rare; only one other pulsar planet, orbiting PSR B1620-26, has been confirmed.
Oldest Known Exoplanet

PSR B1620-26 b is an extrasolar planet located approximately 12,400 light-years away

from Earth in the constellation of Scorpius. It bears the unofficial nicknames "Methuselah" and
"the Genesis planet" due to its extreme age and a few popular sources refer to this object as
"PSR B1620-26 c".The planet is in a circumbinary orbit around the two stars of PSR B1620-
26 (which are a pulsar (PSR B1620-26 A) and a white dwarf (WD B1620-26)) and is the first
circumbinary planet ever confirmed. It is also the first planet found in a globular cluster. The
planet is one of the oldest known extrasolar planets, believed to be about 12.7 billion years old.

PSR B1620-26 b has a mass of 2.5 times that of Jupiter, and orbits at a distance of 23 AU (3.4
billion km), a little larger than the distance between Uranus and the Sun. Each orbit of the planet
takes about 100 years.
The triple system is just outside the core of the globular cluster Messier 4. The age of the cluster
has been estimated to be about 12.7 billion years, and because all stars in a cluster form at about
the same time, and planets form together with their host stars, it is likely that PSR B1620-26 b is
also about 12.7 billion years old. This is much older than any other known planet, and nearly
three times as old as Earth. It has been undergoing many stages through its lifetime.
Shrinking Exoplanet

HD 209458 b, also given the nickname Osiris, is an exoplanet that orbits the solar analog HD
209458 in the constellation Pegasus, some 150 light-years from the Solar System. The radius of
the planet's orbit is 7 million kilometres, about 0.047 astronomical units, or one eighth the radius
of Mercury's orbit. This small radius results in a year that is 3.5 Earth days long and an estimated
surface temperature of about 1,000 °C (about 1,800 °F). Its mass is 220 times that of Earth
(0.69 Jupiter masses) and its volume is some 2.5 times greater than that of Jupiter. The high mass
and volume of HD 209458 b indicate that it is a gas giant.\

HD 209458 b represents a number of milestones in extraplanetary research. It was the first of

many categories:

 a transiting extrasolar planet

 the first planet detected through more than one method
 an extrasolar planet known to have an atmosphere
 an extrasolar planet observed to have an evaporating hydrogen atmosphere
 an extrasolar planet found to have an atmosphere containing oxygen and carbon
 one of the first two extrasolar planets to be directly observed spectroscopically
 the first extrasolar gas giant to have its superstorm measured
 the first planet to have its orbital speed measured, determining its mass directly.
Based on the application of new, theoretical models, as of April 2007, it is alleged to be the first
extrasolar planet found to have water vapor in its atmosphere.
In July, 2014, NASA announced finding very dry atmospheres on HD 209458 b and two other
exoplanets (HD 189733 b and WASP-12b) orbiting Sun-like stars.
Survivor of the Apocalypse

V391 Pegasi b, also known as HS 2201+2610 b, is an extrasolar planet orbiting

the star V391 Pegasi approximately 4570 light-years away in the constellation of
Pegasus. The planet was discovered by means of variable star timing, which
measured anomalies in variability of the star caused by a planet. It is the first
planet to be detected with this method. It found to have mass of 3.2 times Jupiter,
semi-major axis of 1.7 AU, and orbital period of 1170 days. The planet was
discovered in March 2007 and published in September 2007. Its survival indicates
that planets at Earth-like distances can survive their star's red-giant phase, though
this is a much larger planet than Earth (about the same size as Jupiter and Saturn)
Narrative Report