2014-06-10

how many Earth analogs are there in the Kepler field?

Foreman-Mackey may have actually finished his paper on exoplanet abundances today! I hope this is true and we submit tomorrow. I did work on the text for him, but only in the form of giving final comments. One of our main points is that the "rate" or "frequency" or "abundance" of Earth analogs should be expressed as an expected number per star per natural logarithm of period, per natural logarithm of radius. However, in the end, he also computed the number of planets that we expect to have in the Kepler field, with period between 200 and 400 days (Petigura's definition) and radius between 1 and 2 Earth radii (Petigura again), orbiting one of the 42,000 Sun-like stars, in such a way (inclination) that it would transit (conceivably) observably. The answer is nine. With large uncertainty. That is, we should be looking very hard for these Earth analogs, because there ought to be a few of them!

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