Lesson Plan: Detecting Exoplanets using Transit Photometry Physics

Students will be able to

• recall that a transit is when a planet or exoplanet passes in front of its host star from the point of view of an observer (usually on Earth),
• recall that we can detect the presence of an exoplanet around a distant star if it transits across the star because of the temporary decrease in the brightness of the star,
• recall that in order for an exoplanet to transit across a star, the exoplanet’s orbit must be oriented in a certain way relative to Earth,
• recall that the amount of light blocked by a transiting exoplanet depends on the relative sizes of the exoplanet and its host star,
• recall that transits only last for a fraction of the orbital period of the exoplanet, so they can be difficult to observe,
• extract useful data from a graph of the light curve of a star that has an exoplanet transiting across it.