Brightness of Sol's Planets placed around closest stars

How bright would our own sun's planets be around other stars?

Some of the closest, brightest stars and how bright/close our planetary system would appear...

Prime UMBRAS Candidates

Bright nearby stars that might be good search candidates for UMBRAS

Notes:

*Objects further than 2 AU from either of the components Alpha Centaurus A or B are not expected as this region is dynamically unstable due to the binary orbit of the system (although, it may be possible for objects to orbit both at very great distances). A number of other stars in this table are known doubles and also may not be capable of having Venus-through-Jovian objects orbiting at Solar System distances, such as Sirius.

The table below shows how bright and how far away from the stars would planets from our own solar system appear if they were at the distances at which the radial velocity work has detected extrasolar substellar objects.

Sol Planets around RV-Exoplanet Stars

Radial Velocity Stars with extrasolar planets with our solar system
planets placed around them

The field of extrasolar planet investigations is a fast changing one, so it does not make much sense for us to keep updated information on this site. For an up to date listing of extrasolar substellar objects detected, jump to the US mirror of Jean Schneider's page. If any of the links fail, go to the original site in France, but it is sometimes slow to respond.

How does one calculate how bright a planet would appear to be around another star?

mplanet_star = planet magnitude around star viewed from Earth at elongation.
mplanet_Solarsystem = planet magnitude w/in our solar system viewed from Earth at given epoch and phase/distance.
distance_earth-planet = distance between Earth and planet at given epoch/phase.
distance_earth-star = distance of star from Earth.
phase_planet = phase of planet at given epoch.
mstar_abs = absolute magnitude of star.
msun_abs = absolute magnitude of the Sun.

Equation used to generate the tables (I & II)... How is this equation derived?

What kind of Solar-System-like planets might be visible using UMBRAS?

Mercury Venus Earth Mars Jupiter Saturn Uranus

Alpha Cen A or B* X X X ? - - -

Wolf 359 - - - - - - -

L21185 - - - - L - -

Epsilon Eridani - - L - X X -

Epsilon Indi - - ? - X X -

Tau Ceti - - X - X X ?

Gl876 - - - - - - -

Delta Pavonis - - - - X X ?

55 Rho¹ Cancri - - - - X L -

Beta Pictoris - - - - X X -

	Mercury	Venus	Earth	Mars	Jupiter	Saturn	Uranus
Alpha Cen A or B*	X	X	X	?	-	-	-
Wolf 359	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
L21185	-	-	-	-	L	-	-
Epsilon Eridani	-	-	L	-	X	X	-
Epsilon Indi	-	-	?	-	X	X	-
Tau Ceti	-	-	X	-	X	X	?
Gl876	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
Delta Pavonis	-	-	-	-	X	X	?
55 Rho¹ Cancri	-	-	-	-	X	L	-
Beta Pictoris	-	-	-	-	X	X	-

Above detection limits assume the planet is
and star-planet apparent separations > 0.25" at quadrature.
and distinguishable in a single 1000 second exposure in V-band with a signal-to-noise ratio > 5 with 8-metre space-based telescope.

The most important question to be resolved is: can UMBRAS actually achieve the above defined observing characteristics?

Preliminary investigations by the UMBRAS team, and studies conducted by others indicate that it might, though further work is needed. For details, please see the UMBRAS publications page and check out the BOSS link.