Techniques in astrostatistics help astronomers characterize large amounts of data. The authors of today’s astrobite use data-driven astrostatistics to distinguish between populations of hot Jupiters in a sample. It’s a technique that can definitely be put to good use over the next few decades, as oodles of observations pour in from the new telescopes of the 21st century.
Characterizing planets through direct imaging is no easy task! But today’s authors offer a work-around formula, which estimates the crucial parameter of planetary mass from protoplanetary disk observations. In this astrobite, we discuss ‘The Theory’ and ‘The Practice’ of their cool equation.
In this bite, we talk about observations of substructure in a young circumstellar debris disk. What can the formation of multiple debris dust rings tell us?
Today we look at a polluted white dwarf in a binary system: by calculating how many sperm whales accrete onto the white dwarf each second, can we say anything about planet formation?
M-dwarf stars pose as the current favorite target for exoplanet hunters to look for habitable planets. The simulations reported by today’s article, however, show that many of these planets should be expected to be extremely water-rich, and maybe uninhabitable. But it all dependes on how the systems evolve.
The puzzling architecture of the Solar system has long been a headache for planetary dynamicists. An alternative model of the gas giants’ movements may shed new light on the issue.