On supporting science journalism
If you're enjoying this article, consider supporting our award-winning journalism by subscribing. By purchasing a subscription you are helping to ensure the future of impactful stories about the discoveries and ideas shaping our world today.
As Earth orbits the sun, it exerts a gravitational pull that makes the sun “wobble” to and fro at a rate of up to nine centimeters per second. This so-called radial velocity variation is what astronomers often measure to find exoplanets. Yet their instruments are only sensitive enough to turn up large exoplanets—some of them many times more massive than Jupiter—that can exert a tug of more than one meter per second. A group of researchers at Germany's Max Planck Institute for Quantum Optics has developed a calibration technique using a device called a laser-frequency comb to make radial velocity searches more sensitive. It will make it easier to find smaller, potentially Earth-like planets that may be hospitable to life.
Subscribe to Support Independent Journalism
Great science journalism requires human expertise, time, effort and creativity. And it costs money. That’s why I and the journalists here at Scientific American hope you’ll join our community.
When you subscribe, you are supporting staff and freelance journalists who are passionate about telling science stories that are true, important and compelling. Our editors and reporters are often experts in their fields, which means they understand the nuances of big discoveries and can untangle the breakthroughs from the hype. With a subscription, you are also supporting rigorous fact-checking to ensure the words we publish are precise and accurate. And you’re supporting original illustrations, graphics and photos that bring you closer to an advanced laboratory, an ice sheet in Antarctica or a space mission in orbit. You’re helping us craft other types of high-quality journalism as well: Our newsletters are carefully written, edited and curated by staffers you have or will come to know and love. Our Science Quickly podcast is based on original reporting, collaboration with editors and scientists and exacting production.
Subscriptions keep this engine running so we can continue to deliver thoughtful, rigorous and independent science journalism to you. In an era of viral misinformation, this work is crucial. If you value what we do, I hope you’ll consider joining us as a subscriber
