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How do scientists discover exoplanets?

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How are scientists searching for exoplanets? Read here about the ... How does one detect a planet-sized object orbiting a star dozens of lightyears away? The magnitude of ... Planets, as a result, are very small and very dark compared to stars, which in itself would make them very difficult to detect from Earth. read more

Of course, for distant stars, there's no way the naked human eye would be able to reliably detect a dimming in the amount of light we see, so scientists rely on telescopes (notably, the Kepler space telescope) and other instruments to collect and analyze this data. read more

Over 3,500 exoplanets have been discovered so far, over 2000 of which are found by the Kepler Space Telescope, launched in 2009. Besides exoplanets, we have found rouge planets, sub-brown dwarfs and even exocomets. More than 97% of the exoplanets are detected by indirect methods. read more

Up until the launch of the planet hunting spacecraft Kepler in 2009, radial velocity was the most effective method for locating extrasolar planets. The vast majority of Exoplanets detected from Earth were discovered by this method. read more

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