Distant Wanderers: The Search for Planets Beyond the Solar System
After centuries of speculation and decades of advanced high-tech searches, astronomers are just now getting solid evidence of “distant wanderers” — planets outside our own Solar System. Armed with new tools and techniques, researchers have made enormous strides in planet-searching in the last few years. And the results of their efforts are nothing short of spectacular.
In a refreshing and approachable style that will appeal to the non-specialist, veteran science journalist Bruce Dorminey explains what has already been found and what is likely to be found as astronomers gaze further and more clearly into space. The early returns, he reports, are amazing: planets come in all kinds of shapes and sizes. They are searingly hot and and mind-bogglingly cold. Some have nearly circular stable orbits, others follow wildly elliptical paths. And some recently discovered planets seem to have no orbits at all, but wander star-less.
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read moreThe Origin of Stars, Planets and Us
UK science teams are working on several missions that search for evidence of our origins in the depths of space.
Space telescopes like Hubble and XMM-Newton look out at the furthest reaches of space, collecting light from the youngest galaxies. They will be joined in the future by the Herschel Space Observatory, the James Webb Space Telescope and the Planck mission, all gathering evidence on the origin of the Universe, stars and planets.
Spacecraft also look for clues about the origin of life. Hubble can detect molecules of life on planets outside our Solar System, while Cassini Huygens and Rosetta seek answers by visiting our neighbours in space.
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