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An introduction to exoplanets
Week 8: Where do we go from here?
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Course content

Week 8: Where do we go from here?
Introduction and guidance
Acknowledgements

Week 1
Introduction
1 What is a planet?
2 Stars and galaxies
- 2.1 Exoplanets
- 2.2 The Milky Way and other galaxies
3 The sky
4 This week’s quiz
5 Summary of Week 1
Acknowledgements

Week 1 practice quiz

Week 2
Introduction
1 Terrestrial and giant planets
2 The scale of the Solar System: everything is big!
3 Gas giants and ice giants
4 Planet vital statistics
5 Simplifying the numbers
6 Gallery of planet portraits
- 6.1 Terrestrial planets
- 6.2 Giant planets
7 This week’s quiz
8 Summary of Week 2
Acknowledgements

Week 2 practice quiz

Week 3
Introduction
1 Exoplanet names
2 The first exoplanet: 51 Pegasi b
3 Wobbling stars
4 Measuring the movement of stars
5 The exoplanet collection
6 This week’s quiz
7 Summary of Week 3
Acknowledgements

Week 3 practice quiz

Week 4
Introduction
1 Transits in the Solar System
2 Size matters
3 Putting the ingredients together
4 This week’s quiz
5 Summary of Week 4
Acknowledgements

Week 4 compulsory badge quiz

Week 5
Introduction
1 The first transiting planet – HD 209458 b
2 Hot Jupiter transits are easy to measure
- 2.1 HD 209458 b transit: discovered in a car park
- 2.2 WASP: Wide area search for planets
3 The names of transiting planets
4 How to measure an exoplanet’s size and mass
5 Transits from space
6 Close-in planets
7 Density is key
8 This week’s quiz
9 Summary of Week 5
Acknowledgements

Week 5 practice quiz

Week 6
Introduction
1 Learning about the whole Galaxy
2 How many planets?
3 The Milky Way variety pack
4 The light year
5 The habitable zone
6 Where are the aliens? The Drake equation
7 Kepler’s small planets
8 The search for Earth’s first cousins
9 This week’s quiz
10 Summary of Week 6
Acknowledgements

Week 6 practice quiz

Week 7
Introduction
1 Spectra: how we learned what stars are made of
- 1.1 The electromagnetic spectrum
2 Atmospheres of planets and their climates
3 Measurements and uncertainty: why great distances are bad news
4 Special planets
5 This week’s quiz
6 Summary of Week 7
Acknowledgements

Week 7 practice quiz

Week 8
Introduction
1 Welcome to the neighbourhood
2 The Pale Red Dot search: a planet around our closest neighbour?
3 The history of rocky planet formation
- 3.1 Stars, planets and chemical elements
- 3.2 The Kepler-444 planetary system
4 Prospects for extraterrestrial life
- 4.1 Biosignatures
- 4.2 Life on strange worlds
5 The future of exoplanet exploration
6 This week’s quiz
7 Summary of Week 8
Current section:
Take the next step
Tell us what you think
Acknowledgements

Week 8 compulsory badge quiz

About this free course

About this free course

24 hours study

Level 1: Introductory

Full course description

Author

Author

Carole Haswell
(Department of Physical Sciences)
Dr Carole Haswell is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Physics and Astronomy within the Science Faculty at The Open University. Her research is on exoplanets. Dr Carole Haswell is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Physics and...
View author profile
Jo Eberhardt
(Department of Physical Sciences)
Dr Jo Barstow Eberhardt is an Ernest Rutherford Research Fellow in the Faculty of Science, Technology, Engineering & Mathematics at The Open University. She investigates how 3D structure of exoplanet atmospheres can be inferred from ...
View author profile

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BA/BSc (Honours) Open degree
Physics and space
Postgraduate Diploma in Space Science and Technology

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An introduction to exoplanets

An introduction to exoplanets

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Week1
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Week3
Week4
Week5
Week6
Week7
Week8

Take the next step

If you enjoyed this course, why not explore the subject further with our paid-for short course, Science: galaxies, stars and planets?

Find out more about Science: galaxies, stars and planets.

Elsewhere on OpenLearn

You can find many more free resources and courses on the OpenLearn site. You might be particularly interested in these free courses:

Moons of our Solar System
Microgravity: living on the International Space Station
In the night sky: Orion
Galaxies, stars and planets
Icy bodies: Europa and elsewhere
Comparing stars

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