How exoplanets are discovered

The 6,370 confirmed exoplanets in this catalog were found in 11 different ways, and one of them dominates: 4,708 of them, 74%, were found by the transit method. Almost nothing here was seen directly.

Each method has a different blind spot, and the shape of the catalog is as much a portrait of our instruments as of the galaxy. Pick one to see how it works, what it found first, and the nearest world it has reached.

Keep exploring: discoveries by year · by telescope · the first exoplanet ever found

Methods that have found fewer than five confirmed worlds are listed with their counts but have no page of their own. Our own solar system's planets and moons are excluded throughout: they were not discovered by any of these techniques.