Exoplanets

Oct 3, 2013 · 42m 9s
Exoplanets
Description

Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss exoplanets. Astronomers have speculated about the existence of planets beyond our solar system for centuries. Although strenuous efforts were made to find such planets...

show more
Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss exoplanets. Astronomers have speculated about the existence of planets beyond our solar system for centuries. Although strenuous efforts were made to find such planets orbiting distant stars, it was not until the 1990s that instruments became sophisticated enough to detect such remote objects. In 1992 Dale Frail and Aleksander Wolszczan discovered the first confirmed exoplanets: two planets orbiting the pulsar PSR B1257+12. Since then, astronomers have discovered more than 900 exoplanets, and are able to reach increasingly sophisticated conclusions about what they look like - and whether they might be able to support life. Recent data from experiments such as NASA's space telescope Kepler indicates that such planets may be far more common than previously suspected.

With:

Carolin Crawford
Gresham Professor of Astronomy and a member of the Institute of Astronomy at the University of Cambridge

Don Pollacco
Professor of Astronomy at the University of Warwick

Suzanne Aigrain
Lecturer in Astrophysics at the University of Oxford and a Fellow of All Souls College.

Producer: Thomas Morris.
show less
Information
Author BBC
Organization BBC
Website -
Tags
-

Looks like you don't have any active episode

Browse Spreaker Catalogue to discover great new content

Current

Podcast Cover

Looks like you don't have any episodes in your queue

Browse Spreaker Catalogue to discover great new content

Next Up

Episode Cover Episode Cover

It's so quiet here...

Time to discover new episodes!

Discover
Your Library
Search