Planet Hunter and how to find an exoplanet

Wobble is the key to finding an exoplanet. See a quick video here:




Here's my poem about finding exoplanets.

Planet Hunter

Wiggle wiggle remote star.

Show astronomers where you are.

Point the way red, yellow, white.

Which strange atmospheres hold life?

Astronomer GM-44 nods near sleep,

shifts in and out of consciousness,

divines an outmost system’s planet. 

On his desk an open catalogue of stars.

He blinks and drifts, recalls star notes:

‘I search one hundred billion stars …

for the precise conditions that reveal

new planets every month.’

Orbs pull, stagger, ripple,

give away their secret,

teetering stars own real estate.

Oh Milky Way

flash your spiral breast,

expose your tottering suns

so planet hunters may detect

new worlds by gravitation.

Newton's principle spins.

The star that wobbles wins.

GM-44 finds new planets

around two new stars, promises

countless more in alien worlds.

A perfect planet circles Star 70 Virginus,

promise of life in abysmal oceans.

Her moons blossom as large as Mars,

she tempers her seas to a tepid nursery.

Electric nights seed protoplasts.

Charmed errors point the way.

Earth’s sun waggles for her planets.

Our solar system is unique and rare.

Where else to search for exotic life?

Patricia L. Johnson