RE: Supersized rocky planets are out there.
June 2, 2014 at 10:08 pm
(This post was last modified: June 2, 2014 at 10:09 pm by Jackalope.)
(June 2, 2014 at 10:03 pm)Heywood Wrote:(June 2, 2014 at 6:21 pm)Cthulhu Dreaming Wrote: Yes, I'm aware of that. I'm also aware that there are a number of other detection methods which aren't - which is why I asked the question.
ETA: It's an entirely separate matter as to whether or not earth-size/mass planets are *as easy* to identify as larger/more massive ones. In other words, are we finding fewer of them because they are fundamentally harder to detect - which they are.
If Kepler found fewer than expected there are two possible reasons:
A) Kepler's design was flawed.
B) Our models of the dynamics of solar system formation are wrong.
I have no doubt b) is true to a certain extent. Our sample size and corpus of data is too small. They are at least incomplete, and I doubt there many planetary scientists who think otherwise.
I'm not privy to what was expected - so won't comment on a) or whether additional possibilities exist.
