How The 2019 Nobel Prize In Physics Depends On Atomic Physics, And How Lasers Can Do Better

The half-a-Nobel that was split by Michel Mayor and Didier Queloz “for the discovery of an exoplanet orbiting a solar-type star” is based on the “radial velocity method” for detecting planets in orbit around another star. This makes use of the fact that while stars are vastly bigger than planets– the mass of the Sun is a million-ish times the mass of the Earth– they’re not fixed in space. The gravitational force between a star and a planet acts equally on both bodies, and that means both of them move in response. The orbital motion of the planet is much more dramatic, thanks to the smaller mass, but the star also traces out an ellipse, complementary to the planet’s orbit but much, much smaller.

NEWS SOURCE :- https://www.forbes.com/sites/chadorzel/2019/10/11/how-the-2019-nobel-prize-in-physics-depends-on-atomic-physics-and-how-lasers-can-do-better/

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