Why do exo-planets always seem to have quick orbits?

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This is something that always appears weird to me when reading about exo-planets. They usually have these absurd quick orbits around their star, like a couple of days or two weeks at most. Why is that?

In: Planetary Science

5 Answers

Anonymous 0 Comments

It’s selection bias. It’s not that exoplanets are all like, it’s that those are the planets that are easiest for us to detect so that’s mostly what we see. One of the main ways we detect exoplanets is by looking at the “wobble” of the star as the planet’s gravity tugs on it. A planet that’s closer to it’s star (and thus with a shorter orbit) is going to tug on its star more, which makes it more likely that we’ll be able to detect it.

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