The search for another Earth has gone from street-rat to Sultan. Now THAT's some #ScienceGoals. SUPPORT ME ON PATREON: http://bit.ly/ACSPatreon THANKS to Google's Making & Science Team! Check out their #ScienceGoals playlist: http://bit.ly/SciGoals Julien Neel: http://youtube.com/trudbol Sam Robson: http://youtube.com/samrobson Gia Mora: http://giamora.com MP3 http://bit.ly/ACSWorld POSTER http://bit.ly/BoGrav ----- I'm looking for 1 tug The pull of a planet 1 tell A wobbling sun I've searched for years Haven't found a one But they're out there 1 jump In radial redshift 1 slip Of spectral lines They'll see if I can show them the sines Pish tosh Green men Take five Take ten Just a little cash guys Budget's tight Don't fund this trash guys I can take a hint Better face the facts Second-hand'll have to do Eww All you planet hunters at the bottom You've got fact & fantasy entwined Finding planets except they haven't got one Well they gotta be forming readily When you think about it given we've got nine 1 jump A blip in the spectrum 1 shift of meters per second 1 graph of period power They laugh but I'm not sour Here goes 18 months of data Cross & correlate it All I gotta do is run Pish tosh Green men Ah don't mind them If only they'd look closer Would they see a pure void No sirree They'd find out There's worlds galore To see Make way for Pegasi 51 Pegasi First was a world Round an old pulsar That's true But the news Is a sun-like star With wobble Too quick & precise To be designed No fluke not a spot If you like it hot You're gonna love this find Pegasi 51b Planet discovered Orbit traced Every 4 days Hot as can be Its order-Jupiter size Was something of a surprise Especially given its star's proximity Pegasi 51b It's a new era To detect Exoplanets Soon there'll be three As planet pulls on its Sun It shifts the stellar spectrum That's how we found 51b Pegasi How'd a planet get so close in orbit Cause I thought you needed ice to form it Did it later undergo some strange migration Star too small to be so long-pulsating And too old to be so quick rotating Is there any other good interpretation This will certainly help with our funding We got your funding We got your funding Got a surface of 1200 C It's treacherous So treacherous If in time this new breakthrough feels mundane Planets are common That's proof Of the truth I've been telling you This is no mean anomaly Pegasi 51b Planet uncovered Round a far Main sequence star Spectral type G We know its mass to be high Half Jupiter by sine i It's 15.61 pc from home And it shakes our faith in how planets are formed And its star is in Pegasus Give it an A and thus Label the planet as b 51 Pegasi Plotting Doppler shifts is glacial-pace And that astrometry never prevails But baby you're in luck cause Up in space You got a planet-finder never fails You got the power of statistics now You got a view without an atmosphere So no more nights spent locked up in your tower All you gotta do is wait right here And I say Kepler the planet-searcher Got a dip, no 2, no 3 We just measure brightness Plot it out & that's transiting photometry When your stars do this And your curves displace Then your star's got this Transiting its face Then you hit compute And lookie here You get good diameter data From that dip And orbit distance from the length of year Well now we need this tale supported by A ground observer with a good Échelle We got 2000 planets certified 2000 more that only time will tell But let's take em all, plot em out And find out if we're really all alone Is there a rocky world we've found no doubt That orbits in the habitable zone Like home? Kepler the planet searcher Got an Earth 452b Part of a throng 40 billion strong There ain't never been a field Clever as the field There ain't never been a field Better than the field they call Exoplanetology I can show you a world A shining shimmering planet Found concealed in the band-shifts Of the closest star in sight I've found hope in the skies And facing wonder I wonder Could the sine wave discovered be A planet fit for life A whole new world A new fantastic point of blue Placed in that narrow zone Where water flows Midway tween cold & steaming A whole new world Its sun a faint, reddish hue Could there be waiting here A biosphere Evolving in this whole new world to view Fathoming a whole new world to view Unbelievable find Indescribable feeling Earthlings someday revealing Through directly captured light A whole new world Don't just stare from a far Though nigh impossible to see Wouldn't close up be bolder Next to its parent's flair If life is there We'll know through atmosphere spectroscopy A whole new world Block the glare of the star A laser starshot to pursue With a star-shaped occulter Chasing that crazy dream That's always been Of walking in a whole new world with you a whole new world That's where we'll be A thrilling chase A home in space For you and me