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Old 10-02-2011, 07:47 AM
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OneOfOne (Trevor)
Meteor & fossil collector

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Join Date: Jul 2005
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Quote:
Originally Posted by ballaratdragons View Post
...One thing I think about with the Kepler method of finding exoplanets is that there are probably an awful lot of planets not being seen because their orbit is only a few degrees off the plane of observation.
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It is interesting that such a small percentage of planets will be detected by this method. As there is no reason to think that the planets found are anything special you could extrapolate the percentages to get a realistic idea of just how many have planets. If, by random luck, just 1% of planetary systems would be in the right orientation to transit, you could expect the "real" figure to be 100 times larger. It is just mind blowing, isn't it!
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