Exoplanet Spotting Maxi Madness !!

[captainjack]

Not sure where this should go, but, lookie here:

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/kepler/news/kepler_data_release.html

how cool is this ? Answer: MEGA.

All you techheads (like myself) developing super realistic plangen systems may want to take a break and check out the numbers ! At this rate, we'll be able to assemble a table just from simple counts of observed planets ...

The findings increase the number of planet candidates identified by Kepler to-date to 1,235. Of these, 68 are approximately Earth-size; 288 are super-Earth-size; 662 are Neptune-size; 165 are the size of Jupiter and 19 are larger than Jupiter. Of the 54 new planet candidates found in the habitable zone, five are near Earth-sized. The remaining 49 habitable zone candidates range from super-Earth size -- up to twice the size of Earth -- to larger than Jupiter. The findings are based on the results of observations conducted May 12 to Sept. 17, 2009 of more than 156,000 stars in Kepler’s field of view, which covers approximately 1/400 of the sky.

so.....with this absolute minimum of probbaly quickly superceeded data, we have ....5% planets of earth size or smaller, of which 0.5% are in the habitable zones ? Coolness.

 

[Frankymole]

Presumably, the larger a planet the more detectable it is, which skews the results somewhat.

 

[Icosahedron]

Presumably, the larger a planet the more detectable it is, which skews the results somewhat.

Presumably, too, the detectability is a function of the size, distance from the primary, and albedo, so someone with the raw data could offer a reasonable correction for that skew.

 

[Peter Schutze]

>Presumably, too, the detectability is a function of

not 100% sure on how much it affects Kepler specifically but the biggest single "filter" affecting exoplanet results is the orbital plane (ecliptic plane ?)of the system

statistically this should become irrelevant with bigger data sets but it will likely be a factor in any transit based detection statistics

 

[Xerxeskingofking]

modern methods of detecting exoplanets are only just becoming sensitie enough to pick up earth sized planets, to the best of my knowledge. as such, we have a significant sample Bias towards bigger, easier to spot planets, but that will change in the future as newer, more sensitive systems come online.

thories based on the current sample sets are changing all the time. when they first started finding new planets, they ré-wrote their rulebook for planetry formation. Now, as more data becomes available, they are re-writing it agian to fit the newer, more accurate data. chances are, when they start seeing what other earth sized worlds thier are, they will change their minds on how earth formed.....