Strategy for the Detection and Study of Other Planetary Systems and Extrasolar Planetary Materials 1990-2000 (1990) / Chapter Skim
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1. Introduction
1. Introduction
Pages 5-17
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From page 5... ...
The questions to be asked about other planetary systems have been posed and sharpened against a broad and growing base of local knowledge just when the technological ability to detect other systems is poised on the brink of actual discovery. Until the lams there was no real evidence for the existence of small condensed orbiting bodies, over than tiny stars, ~ other stellar systems.
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From page 6... ...
Charles Darwin showed that we were not caretakers of creation, as had been imagined in earlier Western thought, but rather one of many interdependent, evolving species in a long history of species that had emerged, changed, and died. And with the advent of relativity and quantum mechanics from Albert Einstein, Max Planck, Niels Bohr, and Werner Heisenberg, notions of a privileged human observer, direct perception of physical law, and a classically deterministic universe disappeared forever.
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From page 7... ...
That short discussion emphasized the relationships that must exist between the history of our own solar system and the origin and evolution of other stellar systems. In highlighting the essential role that extrasolar observations will eventually play in our understanding of solar system history, this section of the 1980 report foreshadowed the current interest and activity in the detection and study of extrasolar planetary material, and it stands as a direct antecedent to the present report Remarkable observational advances during the past few years have pointed to the presence of solid matter at vanolls stages of development around other stars.
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From page 8... ...
, photometric, and direct-=aging techniques for detection and study of extrasolar planetary material. After evaluating the information from these and other sources, COMPLEX has formulated the present report, which is in response to the charge from the Space Studies Board: 1.
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From page 9... ...
Consider and evaluate the observational capabiliiies—existing, under development, and conceptual—needed for the measurements required to meet the science objectives; and 5. Propose a strategy for the investigation of other planetary systems and extrasolar planetary materials for the decade 1990 to 2000.
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From page 11... ...
COMPLEX emphasizes that there is no implication in this choice of strategic time frame that initiation, evolution, and te~ination of the research effort would all be accomplished within 10 years. Many of the various research areas discussed in this report, in the context of a specific program for investigation of extrasolar planetary materials, are of necessity intrinsically interdisciplinary in nature and have broad observational and theoretical connections with other fields of scientific endeavor.
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From page 12... ...
In Chapter 8 COMPLEX presents its recommended scientific objectives, measurement requirements, and overall decadal strategy for investigation of extrasolar planetary materials.
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From page 13... ...
Bodies larger than ~10-2 cm but smaller than a few hundred kilometers are too big to be called dust, but they are smaller and usually more irregular in shape than are objects typically considered planets. Starorbiting bodies in this mass range are called subplaneta~y objects.
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From page 15... ...
Extrasolar subplaneta~y objects will not be individually observable in any direct way, although it is possible that their presence could be inferred. For example, it has been suggested that inner portions of the Beta Pictoris system that are seemingly empty of dust may be zones where dust has aggregated into larger bodies in the subplaIletary-mass range; if so, the resulting configuration might be similar to our asteroid belt.
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From page 16... ...
The purpose of this terminology is not to create arbitrary categories, but rather to employ a language that simplifies discussion, is relatively congruent with common usage, and does not connote specific modes of origin. Definitions are based entirely on a mass spectrum, divided (except at the dust-subplanetaIy boundary)
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From page 17... ...
In terms of this nomenclature, one can summarize the results, as of mid-1990, of observational searches for evolved extrasolar planetary systems by stating that very-low-mass stars have already been found around some stars, and several discoveries of substellar objects have been reportedincluding one (HD114762b, with a mass perhaps as low as ~10 M - tern that at this writing appears particularly convincing. Another body in the substellar-mass range, the ~2~MJUpi~er companion to the eclipsing millisecond pulsar 1957+20, has been reliably detected but is not included here since it was originally a stellar object that has been reduced to its present mass by pro~nmib to the pulsar.
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