BACKYARD astronomers, here’s your chance to shine. Professional astronomers are calling for amateurs around the globe to help them glean valuable information about distant planets.
They want amateurs to sign up to a programme called Transitsearch, to spur the discovery of planets that pass between us and their parent stars. Most of the 100 extrasolar planets discovered to date have been detected by the wobbles they cause in their stars’ orbits. But you can only get so much information about a planet using this method. If it passes directly between Earth and its parent star, however, astronomers can study how…
