New 'experimental' device may help in search of Earth-like exoplanets

Astronomers have created a new optical device that will help in measuring the Venus' precise gravitational pull on the sun, which might ultimately help in finding Earth-like exoplanets orbiting distant stars.

Astronomers Chih-Hao Li and David Phillips of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics plan to find the second planet again using a powerful new optical device installed on the Italian National Telescope.

They are developing a new laser-based technology known as the green astro-comb for use with the "radial velocity method," which offers complementary information about the mass of the distant planet. From this information, astronomers would be able to determine whether distant exoplanets they discover are rocky worlds like Earth or less dense gas giants like Jupiter.

The new astro-comb that the researchers are developing would be able to detect Doppler shifts as small as 10 centimeters per second, small enough to find habitable zone Earth-like planets, even from hundreds of light years away.

The researchers plan to test the green astro-comb by pointing it at Earth's sun, analyzing its spectrum to see if they could find Venus and rediscover its characteristic period of revolution, its size, its mass and its composition.