Planet Hunters Talk

Reflecting planet.

  • Rickydene by Rickydene

    Is it possible to detect planets that are behind the star at an angle from Earth using this data? If a planet was not on the same plain as earth to its star, it would In theory produce a brightening effect as it reflected light from its star.

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  • davidbundy77 by davidbundy77

    In theory yes, but the amount of light reflected is far too small to be detectable by Kepler.

    According to the NASA Exoplanet Archive 39 very large planets have so far been imaged directly, presumably using large ground-based telescopes.

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  • davidbundy77 by davidbundy77

    Correction: I just stumbled on this. Apparently the reflected light from very large planets such as HAT-P-7b can be detected by Kepler.

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