Hunting For Other Planets

In article .com,
wrote:
Out of curiousity in regards to the search for Extrasolar planets, why
are planet hunters studying worlds hundreds of light years away when we
have several star systems in our own back yard that don't seem to get
much attention, and in theory wouldn't their closer proximity make them
easier to search for and study possible planets?

The major method currently used for planet searches, Doppler velocity
measurement, does not care very much about distance -- it does *not* work
substantially better on very close stars. It does prefer bright stars,
because high-resolution spectroscopy needs quite a bit of light, but the
brighter stars mostly aren't close.

Moreover, Doppler planet detection isn't as easy for multiple stars (Alpha
Centauri and Sirius, for example, are both binary). It's still possible,
but harder to do.

Moreover moreover, it is a relatively slow method except when big planets
are very close to the star. You have to wait multiple orbital periods of
the planet to be sure that an apparent planet is real. So it rewards
people who gather data on *many* stars rather than targeting a few
specific ones, because that gives a steady stream of discoveries. Since
most of the stars the method is usable on are relatively distant, it's not
surprising that you don't hear about nearby stars much.
--
"Think outside the box -- the box isn't our friend." | Henry Spencer
-- George Herbert |