Friday, January 19, 2001, 16:00
WHGA Auditorium
Prof. M. Mayor, Geneve
Abstract:
More than 50 exoplanets have been discovered. Statistical properties of
planetary systems are still entached by important detection bias.
However the distributions of orbital elements and the mass function for the
detected companions , already suggest a lot of questions on formation
mechanisms as well as the evolution of planetary systems.
A significant fraction of new planets have orbits with quite small
semi-major axis (a < 0.05 AU) . These "Hot Jupiters" offer several
opportunities for interesting complementary measurements. As an example,
the observation of a planetary transit in front of a solar-type star
has allowed for the first time ,the measurement of the radius and mean
density of an exoplanet.
We will discuss new technics and domains where progresses are expected.