NOVEMBER 2009 The MoonWalk 06

H
ARPS, a High Accuracy
Radial Velocity Planetary Incessant hunt for Planets
Search project which is
mainly a high precision spectrometer
dedicated to the search for extrasolar planets by
means of the technique of radial velocity
measurements. It was installed in 2002 on ESO's
(European Southern Observatory), 3.6m at La Silla
Observatory in Chille. It has the ability for very long
term radial velocity accuracy (of order of
1m/s).Packed within the vacuum vessel to prevent
any sort of spectral drift due to temperature and air
pressure variations, the spectrograph is fed with a pair
of fibres and optimised for mechanical stability. One
of the pair collects the star light, while the second is
used to either record simultaneously a Th-Ar
reference spectrum or the background sky.
Soon after its installation, it was able to measure the
backward-and-forward motions of stars by detecting
small changes in a star's radial velocity — as small as
3.5 km/hour, a steady walking pace. Such a precision
is crucial for the discovery of exoplanets and the
radial velocity method, which detects small changes
in the radial velocity of a star as it wobbles slightly
under the gentle gravitational pull from an (unseen)
exoplanet, has been most prolific method in the
search for exoplanets. Till earlier this october, it had
in its account a total discovery of 16 planetary objects
in the southern hemisphere, including 4 multi-planet
systems. The cracking news came in October; the
discovery of 32 new exoplanets. Really startling
discovery. One of the planets is surrounding the star
Gliese 667C, which belongs to a triple system. The 6
Earth-mass exoplanet circulates around its low-mass
host star at a distance equal to only 1/20th of the
Earth-Sun telescope distance.
But do you think, all these planets are as calm and
serene as ours? If you do so, then you may be wrong.
Some of them may be too scary and frightening,
even deadly.
Dreadful radiations: The exoplanets PSR
B1257+12b,c and d are the weirdest of all. The entire
system is a graveyard. They are remnants of what
used to be a normal, functional solar system before
the star blew apart in a giant explosion known as a
host star that its atmosphere is
boiling off, ripped away from the
planet as it whips around on its
breakneck 3.5-day orbit. The gas that
supernova. The massive shockwave from the
escapes from HD 209458 b forms a tail about 124,000
supernova stripped away any atmosphere or living
creatures that might have once lived on these planets,
leaving behind ghostly, rocky shells, dead planets
miles (200,000 km) long.
orbiting the corpse of an extinct star.
Intensive frost: OGLE-2005-BLG-390L b has the
Shuddery wind velocity: Next in the sequence is the
distinction of being the coldest exoplanet yet
exoplanet HD 189733 b. It looks like “hot Jupiter” – a
discovered. It takes about 10 Earth years to orbit its
huge gas planet perched dangerously close to a
tiny dwarf star, and it's a chilly trip; the average
burning-hot star, with daytime temperatures around a
temperature on this planet is 50 Kelvin, or minus 370
balmy 1,770 degrees Fahrenheit. HD 189733 b is
degrees Fahrenheit. A good costume for trick-or-
“tidally locked” in its orbit, meaning that the same
treating on this frigid planet would be a toasty self-
side of the planet always faces its star. But, the night
time temperature, was only 500 degrees cooler. How
does the back side of the planet stay so warm? It's
nothing else than the dangerous wind that whisks heat
from day-side to night-side at a speed of 4,500 mph,
nearly six times the speed of sound. In fact,
astronomers estimate that wind speeds might top out
at 22,000 mph, conditions that make hurricanes on
Earth look like a breezy day at the beach.
Tremendous heat: The planet HD 209458 b has a
few things in common with Earth, water vapour,
methane, and carbon dioxide in its atmosphere, key
ingredients for life on our planet. Don't be fooled,
though, because this planet is a roiling cauldron of
almost unimaginable heat. Even the hottest summer heating spacesuit, an oxygen supply, ice skates and
days on Earth don't get as dangerous as the conditions plenty of hot cocoa.
on HD 209458 b, a planet that orbits so close to its

The Pioneer Anomaly

What caused them accelerate?
Is it some software errors, the solar wind or a fuel leak? Or is there some
completely unknown physics behind this anomaly. This question has caused
much trouble to the physicists who are amazed by the unidentified source of
acceleration of the two space-crafts Pioneer 10 and Pioneer 11.
Pioneer 10 was launched in 1972; Pioneer 11 a year later. The latter has lost
contact from the earth. But the thing that fascinates scientists is their strange
trajectories. That's because something has been pushing or pulling them
causing them to accelerate. The acceleration is just ten- billionth the gravity of
the earth but is enough to have shifted Pioneer 10 about 400,000 km off track.
The same deviation was experienced by its sister probe. So which phenomenon
is behind this effect?
Nobody knows. If the cause was some gravitational effect, its something yet
unknown. Various phenomena have been linked with this – variation in fine
structure constant (alpha), the dark matter etc. But since we do not know much
about dark matter, this explanation doesn't help much either.
To get to the bottom of this problem what scientists really need is a mission
designed specifically to test unusual gravitational effects in the outer reaches
of the solar system. "An explanation will be found eventually," says Michael
Nieto of the Los Alamos National Laboratory. "Of course I hope it is due to new
physics – how stupendous that would be. But once a physicist starts working
on the basis of hope he is heading for a fall." May be the explanation is hidden
in some ordinary scientific effect like some unnoticed source of heat on board
the craft.