CosmoView Episode 30: Are We Missing Other Earths?

Some exoplanet searches could be missing nearly half of the Earth-sized planets around other stars. New findings suggest that Earth-sized worlds could be lurking undiscovered in binary star systems, hidden in the glare of their parent stars. Observations were made with Gemini North in Hawai‘i and Gemini South in Chile and the WIYN 3.5-meter Telescope at Kitt Peak National Observatory in Arizona. As roughly half of all stars are in binary systems, this means that astronomers could be missing many Earth-sized worlds.