[OC] I plotted data from ~3500 exoplanets, comparing their mass and radius, and the mass of their parent star.



From the website exoplanets.eu I downloaded all the data they have on exoplanets that have been discovered. Using python i made a visualizing plot.

In the plot two seperated bulks are seen, the lower one will primarily be terrestrial planets (planets, that, like the earth are mostly made of rock, metals and other complex molecules), the upper region will be primarily jovian planets, or “jupiter-like” planets, gas giants made primarily from hydrogen, helium, and sometimes methane, most likely containing a solid core, and possibly holding other complex molecules in their cloud systems like saturn and jupiter.

The pattern that seems to appear is that jovian planets, seem to tend to orbit more massive stars.

Posted by Aggravating-Tea-Leaf

8 comments
  1. This matches the shape of the curve showing the rate of left-handed people over time after it stopped being beaten out of children 100 years ago. I’ll let you draw your own conclusions.

  2. Makes sense – larger stars would require more light elements (H, He) at time of formation, which are also the bulk of Jovian composition. Conditions for one also favor the other.

  3. It would be interesting to use a symbol to indicate what method was used to detect a particular planet. Radial shift, occultation, etc.

  4. This is really cool but the data is clearly skewed by how much harder it is to see smaller planets more than anything.

  5. A very cool plot! However, I’m not sure what the units are. Is Planet Earth at 10^0? If so why not indicate this on the graph?

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