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Exoplanets

An exoplanet, short for extasolar planet, is a body that orbits a star other than the Sun. Obtain insight into these distant worlds using Wolfram|Alpha. The first exoplanet was discovered in 1988, and since then, the number has continued to grow as data from dedicated missions like Kepler and HARPS have made great contributions to the search. The first exoplanets discovered were large Jupiter-sized worlds close to their parent star that allowed the induced wobble of the star, implied from radial velocity measurements, to be detected. As systems became more sensitive, smaller planets at further distances from their star could be detected. Also, the ability to detect transiting exoplanets in front of the host star contributed greatly to the effort, even without radial velocity data. An ongoing goal of these searches is to find exoplanets like Earth.