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Hello everyone,
As my first post in this forum, i want to ask two questions, mainly out of personal interest, concerning the possibilities of transit photometry in detecting exoplanets:
Thank's in advance for your answers!
As my first post in this forum, i want to ask two questions, mainly out of personal interest, concerning the possibilities of transit photometry in detecting exoplanets:
- For larger planets or planets orbiting farther away from the host star, the measured drop of intensity during primary eclipse should be more drastic since the planet blocks more of the stars emitted flux as seen by an observer on a distant planet (e.g. Earth ;)). Is it possible to make similar connections for the duration of the measured decrease in brightness? More precisely, can we infer, solely from measuring the transit duration, something about some orbital features of the planet? (other than the presence of other massive bodies if aperiodicities in the brightness drop are observed over time and not regarding the combination with other detection methods such as radial velocity)
- I have picked up somewhere that planets orbiting farther out are more difficult to detect with the transit method. To me this is not entirely conclusive as i would expect more distant planets to block a greater fraction of the stars light since it's angular diameter as seen from Earth is larger at primary eclipse in comparison to a planet of the same size orbiting closer in! Thus the question: Does this statement refer to the fact that planets farther out are less likely to have an inclination close enough to 90° for a transit to happen along the line of sight meaning that it is statistically less likely for farther out planets to be detected via this method? Or is there really another issue with planets orbiting farther out?
Thank's in advance for your answers!