Are Exoplanets Being Eaten by Stars

There are five popular ways to find exoplanets. Transits, Radial Velocity, Direct Imaging, Micro lensing, & the Timing method. This research focuses on Transits and Radial Velocity methods because they have found the most exoplanets; of the two methods the Transit method has been the most successful because it has found the most exoplanets.

Transit Method A transit occurs when a planet passes directly between a star and an observer's line of sight, thus reducing the star's apparent brightness. This is the method used by the Kepler satellite. This method gives information about a planet's orbital period.

Doppler Shift Method (Radial Velocity) The gravitational interaction between a star and an unseen planet causes the star to wobble. When the star travels towards us, its light appears blue shifted. Instead, when the star travels away from us, the light appears red shifted. Measurements of this effect give information about a planet's mass.