Exoplanets and the Search for Life
Like Duolingo, but for Exoplanets and the Search for Life. Tomo turns the whole topic into a game you play five minutes a day, until it actually sticks.
For the part of you with thirty open tabs that never became anything.
71 levels across 8 sections, about 142 minutes end to end, roughly 28 days at five minutes a day. It moves through Detection and Discovery Nuance, Planetary Architecture and Dynamics, The Loneliest Worlds, Ocean Worlds of the Solar System, Atmospheric Characterization, Habitability in Context, Deep Space and System Formation, and Theoretical Astrobiology.
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Key ideas in Exoplanets and the Search for Life
- Limb darkening makes the stellar edges appear cooler and dimmer than the center
- Gravitational interactions between planets cause departures from strict Keplerian periodicity
- Ignoring the 'softened' edges of the light curve leads to an underestimation of the planet-to-star radius ratio
- The magnitude and frequency of timing shifts can be used to solve for the mass and orbit of an unseen perturber
- The impact is wavelength-dependent, being more pronounced in shorter (bluer) wavelengths
- TTVs are most sensitive to planets near mean-motion resonances
- How limb darkening impacts the calculation of a planet's physical size
- The capability of TTVs to reveal hidden planets
- Gaussian Processes (GP) use kernels to model the covariance of stellar activity without over-fitting the transit signal
- The planet first hides the blue-shifted (approaching) half of the star, causing a redshift anomaly
- Stellar spots rotating in and out of view create correlated noise that mimics or masks transit depths
- The planet then crosses the stellar center where the rotational velocity component is zero
- The sequence of radial velocity shifts during the Rossiter-McLaughlin effect
- The secondary eclipse occurs when the planet passes behind the star, causing the system's total flux to drop
- Stellar noise and Gaussian Processes
- The depth of the eclipse in infrared wavelengths represents the planet's dayside thermal emission
You've tried the other tabs
Thirty open tabs. Four facts you actually kept.
You watched. You nodded. By Sunday it was gone.
One answer, then back to scrolling.
Eight weeks. You meant to finish. You didn't.
Tomo gives Exoplanets and the Search for Life the Duolingo treatment: levels, streaks, and quick quizzes that test what you just learned. That game loop is what the tabs above never had, so it's the one you actually finish.
Here's what playing it feels like
A real question from this course. Take your best guess.
What causes a planet to transit its star slightly earlier or later than a perfectly repeating clockwork schedule?
Get it right to open this lesson and 70 more in the app.
Where Exoplanets and the Search for Life takes you
An exhaustive exploration of planetary systems beyond our own, from the subsurface oceans of icy moons to the detection of biosignatures in the deep cosmos.
- 1
Detection and Discovery Nuance
- Advanced Transit Photometry
- Precision Radial Velocity
- Gravitational Microlensing
- 2
Planetary Architecture and Dynamics
- Migration and Orbital Evolution
- The Diversity of Terrestrial Worlds
- 3
The Loneliest Worlds
- Rogue Planets and Unbound Objects
- 4
Ocean Worlds of the Solar System
- Enceladus: Plumes and Hydrothermalism
- Titan: Methane Hydrology
- Europa and the Galilean Moons
- 5
Atmospheric Characterization
- Transmission Spectroscopy
- Biosignatures and Technosignatures
- 6
Habitability in Context
- The M-Dwarf Challenge
- The Galactic Habitable Zone
- 7
Deep Space and System Formation
- Protoplanetary Disk Evolution
- Brown Dwarfs and Sub-Stellar Objects
- Post-Main Sequence Planetary Fates
- 8
Theoretical Astrobiology
- The Thermodynamics of Life
- Convergent Evolution in the Cosmos
8 sections · 18 units · 71 levels. Built to play, not to enroll.
You pick the voice
Exoplanets and the Search for Life is taught in the The Professor style: clear, structured, thorough. Want a different feel? In the app you can spin up the same topic in any of Tomo's teaching styles. Same facts, totally different vibe.
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Start Exoplanets and the Search for Life today.
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