The Exoplanet Calcultor includes functions that are useful related to the study of planets outside of our solar-system (exoplanets). It also includes some functions generally useful for astronomy, since that's usually the discipline involved in studying exoplanets in the first place.

Introduction

When dealing with extra-solar planet data there are several calculations you need to perform. The units can be tricky! Also, there are the pesky constants (Newton's Universal Gravitation constant, pi, and all that). These equations are worked out here to make it easier to do the math and handling the various units without pulling out all your hair.

The value above is in light-years (ly).  However, this can be automatically converted to other distance units including parsecs, megaparsecs and kilolight-years.

Related Astro Calculators:

• Kepler's 3^rd Law Calc has Kepler's 3^rd law solved for each parameter.
• Astronomy Calculator contains basic formulas for a college level Introduction to Astronomy
• Exoplanet Calculator contains formulas for studying planets outside of our Solar System.
• Astronomical Distance Calculator provides the distance from the Earth to numerous astronomical bodies (e.g. Sun, Moon, planets, stars, Milky Way's Center and Edge, Andromeda Galaxy)
• Astronomical Distance Travel Time Calculator computes the time to travel to distant parts of space at different velocities.
• Wolf 1061c - Distance to Earth: This constant shows the distance of this near-by exoplanet to Earth in various units

Masses in our Solar System

The mass is provided for the following:

• Sun
  • 1.0 Solar Masses
  • 332,968   Earth Masses
  • 1.98855 x 10³⁰ kg
• Mercury
  • 0.00000017 Solar Masses
  • 0.05525611 Earth Masses
  • 3.3x10²³ kg
• Venus
  • 0.00000245 Solar Masses
  • 0.81544626 Earth Masses
  • 4.87x10²⁴ kg
• Earth
  • 0.000003 Solar Masses
  • 1.0 Earth Masses
  • 5.97219x 10²⁴ kg
• Moon
  • 3.694x10^-8  Solar Masses
  • 0.0123031  Earth Masses
  • 7.347 x 10²² kg
• Mars
  • 0.00000032 Solar Masses
  • 0.10749825 Earth Masses
  • 6.42x10²³ kg
• Jupiter
  • 0.00095446 Solar Masses
  • 317.806 Earth Masses
  • 1.898 x 10²⁷ kg
• Saturn
  • 0.00028564 Solar Masses
  • 95.1 Earth Masses
  • 5.68x10²⁶ kg
• Uranus
  • 0.00004365 Solar Masses
  • 14.53 Earth Masses
  • 8.68x10²⁵kg
• Neptune
  • 0.00005129 Solar Masses
  • 17.079 Earth Masses
  • 1.02x10²⁶ kg
• Pluto
  • 7.34x10^-9 Solar Masses
  • 0.00244466 Earth Masses
  • 1.46x10²² kg

The masses are returned in scientific notation with units defaulted to kilograms.  However, the units can be automatically converted via the pull-down menu.  The most useful other units are Solar Masses and Earth Masses.  These will help provide a relative sizes.

All the data in the calculator was pulled from the NASA Goddard Planetary Fact Sheet.