Ep 56: The stars wibble and wobble as their planets go round
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The stars wibble and wobble as their planets go round
There are several ways of detecting planets that orbit stars other than our sun. One method, called Doppler spectroscopy, relies on the fact that an orbiting planet causes its star to wobble. Spectrometers are used to observe the spectral lines within the stars light, (see episode 44,) and measure changes in their red shift or blue shift, (see episode 46,) as the star wobbles.