Temperamental Stars Misinterpret Distant Planets

This is a news story, published by ScienceDaily, that relates primarily to Neptune news.

physics news

For more physics news, you can click here:

more physics news

ScienceDaily news

For more news from ScienceDaily, you can click here:

more news from ScienceDaily

About the Otherweb

Otherweb, Inc is a public benefit corporation, dedicated to improving the quality of news people consume. We are non-partisan, junk-free, and ad-free. We use artificial intelligence (AI) to remove junk from your news feed, and allow you to select the best science news, business news, entertainment news, and much more. If you like physics news, you might also like this article about

stellar variability

. We are dedicated to bringing you the highest-quality news, junk-free and ad-free, about your favorite topics. Please come every day to read the latest exoplanet host stars news, Temperamental stars news, physics news, and other high-quality news about any topic that interests you. We are working hard to create the best news aggregator on the web, and to put you in control of your news feed - whether you choose to read the latest news through our website, our news app, or our daily newsletter - all free!

distant planets

ScienceDaily

•

Science

Temperamental stars are distorting our view of distant planets

Summary

Nutrition label

81% Informative

Most of the information we have about planets beyond our solar system (exoplanets) comes from looking at dips in starlight as these planets pass in front of their host star.

Researchers looked at the atmospheres of 20 Jupiter- and Neptune -sized planets and found that the host stars' changeability distorted the data for about half of them.

If researchers did not properly account for these variations, the team said, they could misinterpret features such as the planets' size, temperature and the composition of their atmospheres.

The risk of misinterpretation is manageable with the right wavelength coverage.

Shorter wavelength, optical observations such as those used in this study are particularly helpful, as this is where stellar contamination effects are most apparent.

The other is to have two observations of the same planet in the optical region of the spectrum that are taken at different times.

VR Score

Informative language

Neutral language

Article tone

semi-formal

Language

English

Language complexity

Offensive language

not offensive

Hate speech