Vulcan is the fictional planet in Star Trek from which Spock hails, however back in 2018, experts discovered a planet orbiting 40 Eridani A, the star Vulcan was said to orbit in the series. Flash forward to 2024 and much to the chagrin of Trekkies everywhere, astronomers now say that was a false positive and a new analysis has revealed Vulcan doesn’t exist.
Category
📚
LearningTranscript
00:00 Vulcan is the fictional planet in Star Trek from which Spock hails.
00:07 However, back in 2018, experts discovered a planet orbiting 40 Aridani A. The star Vulcan
00:13 was said to orbit in the series.
00:15 Flash forward to 2024, and much to the chagrin of Trekkies everywhere, astronomers now say
00:20 that was a false positive and a new analysis has revealed Vulcan doesn't exist.
00:25 So what happened?
00:26 Well, the former Vulcan was discovered initially using what's called radial velocity, or detecting
00:30 the gravitational interaction between the star and a possible planet.
00:34 Experts are able to measure how much the planet and star tug on one another as they orbit
00:38 around a common center point.
00:39 This is used when we cannot detect a planet passing between us and a star.
00:43 However, the fourth exhaustive study to confirm Vulcan has failed to do so because the readings
00:48 they have been getting are inconsistent.
00:49 That wouldn't be the case if a planet was orbiting every 42 days as they suspected.
00:54 Experts are now pointing to changes within the star itself that caused the false positive.
00:58 They add it could be star spots, bright spots, or internal convection causing the gravitational
01:03 wobble coinciding with the star's 42-day rotational period.
01:07 [MUSIC PLAYING]
01:10 (gentle music)