Hostname: page-component-cc8bf7c57-l9twb Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-12T06:42:43.275Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Visibility of Earth Transits

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 May 2016

T. Castellano ,
L. Doyle  and
D. McIntosh
T. Castellano
Affiliation:
NASA Ames Research Center, MS 245-6, Moffett Field, CA 94035
L. Doyle
Affiliation:
SETI Institute, 2035 Landings Drive, Mountain View, CA 94043, USA
D. McIntosh
Affiliation:
Symtech Corporation, 2750 Alexandria Ave., Suite 104, Alexandria, VA 22314, USA

Abstract

Core share and HTML view are not available for this content. However, as you have access to this content, a full PDF is available via the ‘Save PDF’ action button.

The recent photometric detection of planetary transits of the solar-like star HD 209458 at a distance of 47 parsecs suggest that transits can reveal the presence of Jupiter-size planetary companions in the solar neighborhood (Charbonneau et al. 2000; Henry et al. 2000). Recent space-based transit searches have achieved photometric precision within an order of magnitude of that required to detect the much smaller transit signal of an earth-size planet across a solar-size star. Laboratory experiments in the presence of realistic noise sources have shown that CCDs can achieve photometric precision adequate to detect the 9.6 E-5 dimming of the Sun due to a transit of the Earth (Borucki et al. 1997; Koch et al. 2000). Space-based solar irradiance monitoring has shown that the intrinsic variability of the Sun would not preclude such a detection (Borucki, Scargle, Hudson 1985). Transits of the Sun by the Earth would be detectable by observers that reside within a narrow band of sky positions near the ecliptic plane, if the observers possess current Earth epoch levels of technology and astronomical expertise. A catalog of solar-like stars that satisfy the geometric condition for Earth transit visibility are presented.

Type
Part V: Discovery and study of extrasolar planets - future
Information
Symposium - International Astronomical Union , Volume 202: Planetary Systems in the Universe – Observation, Formation and Evolution , 2004 , pp. 445 - 447
Copyright
Copyright © Astronomical Society of the Pacific 2004 

References

Borucki, W. J., Scargle, J. D., & Hudson, H. S. 1985, ApJ, 291, 852.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Borucki, W. J., Koch, D. G., Dunham, E. W., & Jenkins, J.M. 1997, in ASP Conf. Ser. Vol. 119, Planets Beyond Our Solar System and the Next Generation of Space Missions, ed. Soderblom, D.R. (San Francisco: ASP), 153.Google Scholar
Charbonneau, D., Brown, T. M., Latham, D. W., & Mayor, M. 1999, ApJ, 529, L45.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Corbet, R.H.D. 1999, PASP, 111, 881.Google Scholar
Filippova, L.N., Strelnitskij, V.S. 1988, ATS, 1531, 31.Google Scholar
Henry, G. W., Marcy, G. W., Butler, R. P., & Vogt, S. S. 2000, ApJ, 529, L41.Google Scholar
Koch, D. G., Borucki, W. J., Dunham, E. W., Jenkins, J.M., Webster, L., Witteborn, F. 2000, in SPIE Proc. 4013, UV Optical and IR Space Telescopes and Instruments, ed. Breckinridge, J. B. & Jakobsen, P. (Bellingham, WA: SPIE), 508.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lemarchand, G.A. 1994, Ap&SS, 214, 209.Google Scholar
Morrison, P. 1962, Bulletin of the Phil. Society, 16, 58.Google Scholar
Pace, G.W. 1979, JBIS, 32, 215.Google Scholar
Perryman, M. A. C. et al. 1997, A&A, 323, L49.Google Scholar
Shostak, G.S. 1997, in IAU Coll. 161, Astronomical and Biochemical Origins and the Search for Life in the Universe, ed. Cosmovici, C.B., Bowyer, S., & Werthimer, D. (Bologna: Editrice Compositori), 719.Google Scholar