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> Those two things weren't readily available until the past few decades...which surprise is when exoplanet discoveries started happening. I think the other pos
by interestica 6y ago
> Those two things weren't readily available until the past few decades...which surprise is when exoplanet discoveries started happening.
I think the other poster might be alluding to a chicken-and-egg situation: could a stronger theoretical basis for the existence of 'Hot Jupiters' have driven development toward the goal of their detection 20 years earlier?
- giantrobot 6y agoHot Jupiters were unknown until they were discovered once instruments were sensitive enough to detect them. No major planetary development models predicted them. The current best explanation for them is they formed much further out from their parent stars and migrated inward. The migration phenomena is still poorly understood, it wasn't on anyone's radar in the 70s and 80s. So until Hot Jupiters were discovered they were not predicted. No one even thought to look for them. No one was thinking about Hot Jupiter detectors that just didn't get funding. Had billions of dollars flowed into astronomy instead of particle accelerators exoplanets (of all types) might have been discovered earlier. Then again they may not have. It's a pointless "what if".