For the first time in the history of domestic observations, scientists of the Russian Academy of Sciences have discovered eight potential exoplanets. This was reported by the publication “RIA Novosti” with reference to the scientific director of the Space Research Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences Lev Zeleny. According to him, the researchers were helped in this by a special robotic telescope, observations on which began to be carried out in 2020.
Until that time, Russian scientists practically did not participate in the search for exoplanets. Starting in 2020, the Special Astrophysical Observatory of the Russian Academy of Sciences has been using a 50-cm robotic telescope to detect exoplanets using transit photometry – when a planet passes against the background of a star, affecting its brightness. This method allows you to determine the size of the star, as well as the presence of an atmosphere and its composition.
Exoplanets are any planets outside the solar system with potentially habitable conditions. Previously, they were difficult to detect, because the light from the stars around which they orbit is much brighter and outshines them. The first confirmed exoplanets were discovered by the Polish astronomer Aleksander Volshchan in 1991. To date, scientists have discovered almost 5,300 such planets, and there could be hundreds of billions in total. And that’s just in our galaxy.
Source: Trash Box
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