00:04Vulcan is the fictional planet in Star Trek from which Spock hails. However, back in 2018,
00:09experts discovered a planet orbiting 40 Erydney A. The star Vulcan was said to orbit in the series.
00:15Flash forward to 2024, and much to the chagrin of Trekkies everywhere, astronomers now say that
00:20was a false positive, and a new analysis has revealed Vulcan doesn't exist. So what happened?
00:25While the former Vulcan was discovered initially using what's called radial velocity, or detecting
00:30the gravitational interaction between the star and a possible planet, experts are able to measure how
00:35much the planet and star tug on one another as they orbit around a common center point. This is used
00:40when we cannot detect a planet passing between us and a star. However, the fourth exhaustive study to
00:45confirm Vulcan has failed to do so because the readings they've been getting are inconsistent.
00:49That wouldn't be the case if a planet was orbiting every 42 days, as they suspected. Experts are now
00:55pointing to changes within the star itself that cause the false positive. They add it could be star
00:59spots, bright spots, or internal convection causing the gravitational wobble, coinciding with the
01:04star's 42-day rotational period.
