Another type of blend that could fool us is having a binary system inside our photometric field. In this case, the foreground or background star would add a periodic effect that could mimic a planetary transit, leading us to error. However, the star could be orbiting the very same planetary system we try to detect, in what is called a ‘hieararchical triple’. It wouldn’t be a problem if this is a lonely star, it would just increase the incoming flux without any other side effect. This also increase the chance of inadvertently including any other star in the measurements, something which is usually termed a ‘blend’. Kepler mission’s aperture is, for example, some arc seconds across. (2013)Įven if we are observing the perfect star, the photometric aperture of any instrument needs to be big enough to get a good signal to noise ratio. Red lines show the best-fit model to each transit event. Black dots are the actual data, folded into a single transit event, while blue dots are the binned data including error bars calculated from standard deviation. From top to bottom, panels refer to Kepler 37b, c and d, respectively. Transit light curves for the Kepler 37 system. Let’s assume we can get rid of this kind of problems by observing some well-behaved stars. This point is central for the studies developed by the Kepler mission. In short, cold stars use to show more variability than hot stars. This is commonly assumed to be well determined by the models of the interior of stars. What kind of artifacts can contaminate our detections? All stars show an intrinsic variability up to a certain extent, related to their mass and temperature. How can we discriminate between false positives and real planets? This is not an easy question to answer. However, there is still a second, more subtle problem. Increasingly efficient detectors and, more importantly, moving our observatories to space has allowed the detection of almost 300 planets using this technique, as of February 2013 3. The first problem is that such a decrease of incoming flux is small enough to get lost in our measurements noise. If you happen to find a planet crossing in front of its star from your point of view (‘a transit’), you could in principle detect a decrease in the amount of light reaching to your telescope. The idea that supports the detection of planets by means of planetary transits is pretty straightforward 2. Keep in mind that the transit method only provides an estimation of the planetary radius and not their masses, so their density or composition remain unknown.
![tiny planet models tiny planet models](https://www.models-resource.com/resources/big_icons/8/7122.png)
An artistic view of the Kepler 37 system compared with the planets of our Solar System. However, Kepler 37b really makes the difference: being just slightly larger than the Moon it is not only a technical challenge for detection but it is also a first step towards understanding how common small planets can be. They are probably somewhat between Mars and the Earth in size (Kepler 37c) and twice as big as our pale blue dot (Kepler 37d). Two other planets orbit farther around the star. Such a tiny planet is called Kepler 37b and it is not alone. Their work shows that star Kepler 37 hosts the smallest planet we have ever seen, even if we include Mercury in our own Solar System. This question has been addressed by Barclay and collaborators in a paper recently published by Nature magazine 1. But, what lies in the opposite side of the spectrum? So far, we had witnessed giants crossing in front of stars and became familiar with concepts such as hot-jupiters, super-terrae and so on. And this will continue for at least three more years, giving us insight into the wondrous nature of the planetary systems in our galaxy’s vicinity. Every little twinkle in more than 150,000 stars is being recorded since 2009, looking for planetary transits. Each world brings new elements, mechanics and surprises.The Kepler mission is gazing at the Universe. The timing of the button press must be precise to carry the planet through the portal to the next level.Try to beat the levels as fast as possible to collect stars that will unlock more levels. Use one button to control a group of complex mechanisms. One button controls everything - Think that it's simple? Will the missing planet be behind the next portal? Find out, Beat the high-score or compete with your friends in this new Physics-Puzzle!
![tiny planet models tiny planet models](https://img2.cgtrader.com/items/43277/649d0228d7/large/little-big-planet-luffy-3d-model-low-poly-max.jpg)
You have the ability to manipulate the world elements to guide him safely through the galaxies in this Physics-Puzzle-Adventure. «Tales of the Tiny Planet» tells the story of a Planet searching through the galaxies for his lost friends.