The imminent release of the Elite: Dangerous star map has got me excited about exoplanets again. I hadn't realised that so many had been discovered and _confirmed_ just this year! See these plots of the confirmed exoplanets:
Number of planets discovered by year:
The range of planets discovered by mass:
...and their wide variety of unusual planetary orbit configurations: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gnZVvYm6KKM
One interesting thing in this plot is the number of Super-Earths. Planets with between 1.25 and 2 Earth masses. No such planet exists in our solar system, so we have no idea what they look like. It's not entirely certain what a Super-Earth is - it all depends on its density. It could be rocky like the Earth, it could be less dense and icy like a scaled-up Ganymede/Europa, or in the less dense cases it could have a very thick gaseous atmosphere like a mini-Neptune. There's an analysis of the Super-Earths on this blog:
http://backalleyastronomy.blogspot.co.uk/2012/04/between-earth-and-uranus-part-ii.html
I'm very excited to see how FD have imagined the Super-Earths in Elite: Dangerous.
Number of planets discovered by year:
One interesting thing in this plot is the number of Super-Earths. Planets with between 1.25 and 2 Earth masses. No such planet exists in our solar system, so we have no idea what they look like. It's not entirely certain what a Super-Earth is - it all depends on its density. It could be rocky like the Earth, it could be less dense and icy like a scaled-up Ganymede/Europa, or in the less dense cases it could have a very thick gaseous atmosphere like a mini-Neptune. There's an analysis of the Super-Earths on this blog:
http://backalleyastronomy.blogspot.co.uk/2012/04/between-earth-and-uranus-part-ii.html
I'm very excited to see how FD have imagined the Super-Earths in Elite: Dangerous.
