Exoplanet Hunter Reading Passage 1A PDF

Kesler Science Science Reading Comprehension Online Instructions for Students If you are using the online answer sheet, use the link to the Google form your teacher provided for this article. Go to the next page for more help on filling out the...

Kesler Science Science Reading Comprehension Online Instructions for Students If you are using the online answer sheet, use the link to the Google form your teacher provided for this article. Go to the next page for more help on filling out the form. If you are using the PDF answer sheet, follow your teacher’s instructions to open the file in a PDF editor. You can type your answers into the sheet. Your teacher may also want you to highlight and mark where you found answers in this reading file.  1 2 Online Answer Sheet Instructions If you are using the online answer sheet, use the link to the form your Enter your email address and name. teacher provided for this article. Choose your class. 3 4 5 Sometimes you may need to upload a photo. You can take a picture with a Look at this file to read the article, phone, webcam, or scanner. Click Add The Submit button is at the bottom of then answer the questions in the File and browse to the picture you the form. You can submit without form. saved. completing the form. 6 7 8 ! You can edit your answers or return later to complete the questions. Go When you have completed all the Make sure you hit submit anytime you back to the link your teacher gave you questions, carefully check your stop working on the form so you do for the form, click it, then click Edit answers and submit your form for the not lose your answers. your response. final time.  Johannes Kepler was a German astronomer who discovered three major laws of planetary motion. NASA’s Kepler Space Telescope, an observatory in space dedicated to finding planets outside our solar system (exoplanets) is named for Johannes Kepler. The telescope launched in 2009 and since that time astronomers have discovered thousands of exoplanets. During the first four years of its mission, the Kepler telescope pointed at the constellation Cygnus and found exoplanets ranging in size from Earth to Neptune. Kepler’s original mission was only supposed to last one year instead of four, but when its time ran out 2013, NASA was forced to create a new mission. The new mission, K2, differs from the original mission in that the telescope now switches its view to different points in the sky. As of 2017, there have been 2,335 confirmed planets by the Kepler mission with many others yet to be confirmed. How can scientists see planets in the darkness of space when planets themselves give off no light? A common method astronomers use is radial velocity which has so far found the most number of exoplanets. A star or sun does not remain completely stationary, and when a planet orbits it, the sun moves ever so slightly. The sun is responding to the gravitational tug of the planet. This tug causes a “wobble” in the star, changing the color of light that astronomers observe. The “wobble” indicates a planet is passing in front of the sun. Another method for detecting exoplanets is the transit method. Think of when the Moon passes directly in front of the Sun, blocking its light. The transit method is like this process. When a planet passes directly between a star and the astronomer, it blocks some of the star’s light indicating a planet is orbiting that star. A less effective way of finding exoplanets is direct imaging. This is an extremely difficult method and one without much success. However, some exoplanets have been discovered by taking their picture. If astronomers can remove the overwhelming glare of the sun, they can sometimes get a direct photo of the planet. There are other methods used in finding exoplanets, and in the future astronomers will develop other, even more reliable ways to determine exactly the size and composition of exoplanets. 29 © Kesler & Wheaton, 2018