A planet thought to orbit the star 40 Eridani A – host to Mr. Spock’s fictional home planet, Vulcan
The possible detection of a planet orbiting a star that Star Trek made famous drew excitement and plenty of attention when it was announced in 2018.
Two methods for detecting exoplanets – planets orbiting other stars – dominate all others in the continuing search for strange new worlds.
Even the scientists who made the original, possible detection of planet HD 26965 b – almost immediately compared to the fictional Vulcan
While the new finding, at least for now, robs star 40 Eridani A of its possible planet Vulcan, the news isn’t all bad
The demonstration of such finely tuned radial velocity measurements holds out the promise of making sharper observational distinctions between actual planets and the shakes and rattles on surfaces of distant stars.
Even the destruction of Vulcan has been anticipated in the Star Trek universe. Vulcan was first identified as Spock’s home planet in the original 1960s television series.
For very large planets, the radial velocity signal mostly leads to unambiguous planet detections. But not-so-large planets can be problematic.