Planet Hunters Talk

Regarding the changes on a star’s brightness data (some beginner's questions)

  • Arqueotipo by Arqueotipo

    (When recording the data), each star maintains its brightness as 1.0000 when it is not having any kind of disturbance or transit interference? I mean not 0.9999 or 1.0001, always have a level of one, or is the case that the way the star consumes its nucleus make its light variable?

    ¿It is actually possible to have a clean data of a star without any kind of transit interference?

    Also, (List below) which kinds of transits are possible to make interference with the star brightness? And those can be detected with the data of planet hunters? And which ones I am missing?

    1. Planets (Yes)
    2. Planetoid (Can be detected?)
    3. Stars (Yes)
    4. Pulsars (Yes)
    5. Magnetar (Can be detected?)
    6. Neutron stars (Can be detected?)
    7. Black holes (Can be detected?)
    8. Comets (Can be detected?)
    9. Asteroid (Can be detected?)
    10. Meteoroid (Can be detected?)
    11. Meteor (Can be detected?)
    12. Nebulas (Can be detected?)

    One last one, it is true that quantum particles or subatomic events like mini black holes in the vacuum on the space could also make interference to the star’s brightness when the distances, in light years, are so long?
    Thanks for reading!

    Posted

  • ajamyajax by ajamyajax in response to Arqueotipo's comment.

    Dear New Planet Hunter: you have lots of good questions, but this is basically a discovery website where all of us who are new to astronomy read and explore and learn as we go. There are many answers posted here though by our professional astronomer friends in tutorials or helpful blogs. So if you are really interested just keep reading and looking at light curves and you will learn a lot of amazing new stuff.

    Also remember there are many questions in astronomy that no one has any really good answers for just yet. But searching for those answers is the fun part. So enjoy this fine adventure I hope, and best of luck!

    p.s. the internet is another vast source of information of course. And just one example here, but hope it helps.

    http://www.aavso.org/variables-what-are-they-and-why-observe-them

    Posted

  • zoo3hans by zoo3hans in response to Arqueotipo's comment.

    Well, anything smaller than about the Moon cannot be detected by Kepler, so forget about Comets, Asteroids, Meteoroids, etc. (only whole swarms of them might be seen). Meteors just occur in the atmosphere of a planet (the Earth). Pulsars, Magnetars and Neutron Stars are all the same objects more or less. So if you say "yes" to Pulsars, you say also "yes" to the others... Black Holes cannot be detected directly, but maybe its Accretion Disk. Nebulas are too big, too thin and too slowly moving to cause a transit. Single particles cannot be seen in front of a million kilometer diameter star (which seems obvious to me).

    I would agree with ajamyajax to search the Web too. There are so many interesting articles to be found!

    Posted

  • Arqueotipo by Arqueotipo

    ajamyajax Thanks for your answer and for the link! =)

    zoo3hans so much thanks! really i have a better picture now!

    Variable stars exist and they are scary.

    ¿It is actually possible to have a clean data of a star without any kind of transit interference? Nope

    • Planets (Yes)
    • Planetoid (Nope)
    • Stars (Yes)
    • Pulsars (Yes)
    • Magnetar (Yes)
    • Neutron stars (Yes)
    • Black holes (Maybe - related to its Accretion Disk)
    • Comets (Nop)
    • Asteroid (Nop)
    • Meteoroid (Nop)
    • Meteor (noob fail so Nop)
    • Nebulas ( Nop)

    I will read more, thanks. About the subatomic particles I was thinking on accumulative density of them in light years scale blocking the light transits somehow, but since this idea is related to the Nebulas composition I think could be the same answer as zoo3hans gently answer, but never mind, maybe it is not so related anyway.

    I will continue hunting planets and stuff, thanks for the replies, =)

    Posted