University of Kansas graduate student Alex Polanski and a team of astronomers recently discovered 15 new exoplanets and surveyed more than 100 others. The data collected is the largest mass cataloging of exoplanet information to date.
It brings forth new clues about our solar system and beyond, but also confronts scientists with new questions.
A number of the discovered exoplanets, considered to be sub-Neptunes or super-Earths, are very close to their star with a fast orbital pattern.
"We don't have an example of that in our own solar system, which we think is really, really odd," Polanski said. "Why is the universe making so many of these intermediate-sized planets on such short-period orbits? What happened differently in our own solar system that we got such a different architecture?"
Ian Crossfield, a co-author of the study and an associate professor of physics and astronomy at the University of Kansas, equated the research of exoplanets to moving homes.
"When you move into a new neighborhood, you want to meet the neighbors and know what they're like," Crossfield said. "Well, we want to know what our neighbors are like too. We want to understand the demographics of planetary systems."
- Alex Polanski, doctoral student in physics and astronomy, University of Kansas
- Ian Crossfield, associate professor of physics and astronomy, University of Kansas
