[Music] How can you find planets orbiting other stars?
So far, the most common and successful
method is watching for distant eclipses, called transits.
As a planet passes in front of its star,
it blocks some of the light, causing a slight drop in brightness.
A very sensitive camera, watching the same star
for long enough, can see two or more of these drops.
The timing and amount of change provide information
about the size of the planet and its distance from its host star.
Larger drops usually mean larger planets.
Complicated dip patterns can indicate multiple planets.
The transit method has already found thousands of planets outside
our solar system, and with upcoming missions scanning even more of the sky,
it will likely find thousands more.
[Music]