Exoplanets - False Positives - NASA's Kepler Observatory

[Eratosthenes]

‘False positives:’ More than half of NASA’s Kepler exoplanets aren’t actually planets

https://www.rt.com/usa/324815-half-kepler-exoplanets-not-planets/

"A five-year study of exoplanet data captured by the Kepler space observatory found that half the exoplanet candidates aren’t planets at all. They are either too small (brown dwarfs) or eclipsing binary stars (failed stars)"

I will need to update my Ipad App called Exoplanet which currently has 1,979 confirmed exoplanets in its data base.

:D

[rustigsmed]

thanks Peter,

is it just me or is that article very confusing?

A five-year study of exoplanet data captured by the Kepler space observatory found that half the exoplanet candidates aren’t planets at all. They are either too small (brown dwarfs) or eclipsing binary stars (failed stars).

Righton, eclipsing binary stars are failed stars now. brown dwarfs are too small to be planets??

Wouldn't they have been making these detections all the time, its their interpretation of the data rather than the data presenting false positives? All Kepler is doing is detecting changes in starlight brightness yes, no?

Cheers

russ

[michaellxv]

Yes a bit confusing, I had to read some of it at least twice.

“As far as I’ve read, their analysis only applies to KOIs, and they did not rule out any fully-confirmed planets,” Coughlin added.

The number of confirmed planets hasn't been reduced. They were just working through the candidate planets and worked out a lot of them were something else. Nothing wrong with that.

[rustigsmed]

so saying 'false positive' is a little misleading, its simply a lower proportion of detections flagged for further investigation are actually planets. the detected change in light is still real it is just that eclipsing stars or brown dwarfs are being detected rather than planets...

[Eden]

This is exactly as was expected, which is why they are only candidates. Having examined thousands of light curves from the Kepler science data, it comes as no surprise to me that there are so many false positives. Eclipsing binary stars and short period exoplanets often have very similar light curves.

[KenGee]

Peter don't trust sites that can't get basic things right, and or don't put links to the source.