The list of

exoplanet An exoplanet or extrasolar planet is a planet outside the Solar System. The first confirmed detection of an exoplanet was in 1992 around a pulsar, and the first detection around a main-sequence star was in 1995. A different planet, first det ...

s detected by the

Kepler space telescope The Kepler space telescope is a defunct space telescope launched by NASA in 2009 to discover Earth-sized planets orbiting other stars. Named after astronomer Johannes Kepler, the spacecraft was launched into an Earth-trailing heliocentric orb ...

contains bodies with a wide variety of properties, with significant ranges in orbital distances, masses, radii, composition, habitability, and host star type. As of June 16 2023, the

Kepler Johannes Kepler (27 December 1571 – 15 November 1630) was a German astronomer, mathematician, astrologer, natural philosopher and writer on music. He is a key figure in the 17th-century Scientific Revolution, best known for his laws of p ...

space telescope and its follow-up observations have detected 2,778 planets, including

hot Jupiter Hot Jupiters (sometimes called hot Saturns) are a class of gas giant exoplanets that are inferred to be physically similar to Jupiter (i.e. Jupiter analogue, Jupiter analogues) but that have very short orbital periods (). The close proximity to t ...

s, super-Earths, circumbinary planets, and planets located in the circumstellar habitable zones of their host stars. Kepler has detected over 3,601 unconfirmed planet candidates and 2,165

eclipsing binary star A binary star or binary star system is a Star system, system of two stars that are gravity, gravitationally bound to and in orbit around each other. Binary stars in the night sky that are seen as a single object to the naked eye are often resolved ...

s. In addition to detecting planets itself, Kepler has also uncovered the properties of three previously known extrasolar planets. Public Kepler data has also been used by groups independent of NASA, such as the Planet Hunters citizen-science project, to detect several planets orbiting stars collectively known as Kepler Objects of Interest. Kepler, launched on March 7, 2009, was designed to observe a fixed portion of the sky in

visible light Light, visible light, or visible radiation is electromagnetic radiation that can be perceived by the human eye. Visible light spans the visible spectrum and is usually defined as having wavelengths in the range of 400–700 nanometres (nm ...

and measure the

light curve In astronomy, a light curve is a graph (discrete mathematics), graph of the Radiance, light intensity of a celestial object or region as a function of time, typically with the magnitude (astronomy), magnitude of light received on the ''y''-axis ...

s of the various stars in its field of view, looking for planets crossing in front of their host stars via the

transit method Methods of detecting exoplanets usually rely on indirect strategies – that is, they do not directly image the planet but deduce its existence from another signal. Any planet is an extremely faint light source compared to its parent star. For e ...

. Since the launch of the spacecraft, though, both the ''Kepler'' team at NASA and independent researchers have found new ways of detecting planets, including the use of the transit timing variation method and relativistic beaming. In addition, gravitational microlensing has been proposed as a method of using ''Kepler'' to detect compact objects, such as

white dwarf A white dwarf is a Compact star, stellar core remnant composed mostly of electron-degenerate matter. A white dwarf is very density, dense: in an Earth sized volume, it packs a mass that is comparable to the Sun. No nuclear fusion takes place i ...

neutron star A neutron star is the gravitationally collapsed Stellar core, core of a massive supergiant star. It results from the supernova explosion of a stellar evolution#Massive star, massive star—combined with gravitational collapse—that compresses ...

s, and

black hole A black hole is a massive, compact astronomical object so dense that its gravity prevents anything from escaping, even light. Albert Einstein's theory of general relativity predicts that a sufficiently compact mass will form a black hole. Th ...

s. ''Kepler'' has also measured the reflected light from some planets already known, discovering planets undetectable with the transit method as well as improving knowledge of the characteristics of planets already discovered. On February 26, 2014, NASA announced the discovery of 715 newly verified

exoplanets An exoplanet or extrasolar planet is a planet outside the Solar System. The first confirmed detection of an exoplanet was in 1992 around a pulsar, and the first detection around a main-sequence star was in 1995. A different planet, first detec ...

around 305

stars A star is a luminous spheroid of plasma held together by self-gravity. The nearest star to Earth is the Sun. Many other stars are visible to the naked eye at night; their immense distances from Earth make them appear as fixed points of ...

by the

Kepler Space Telescope The Kepler space telescope is a defunct space telescope launched by NASA in 2009 to discover Earth-sized planets orbiting other stars. Named after astronomer Johannes Kepler, the spacecraft was launched into an Earth-trailing heliocentric orb ...

. The exoplanets were found using a statistical technique called " verification by multiplicity". 95% of the discovered exoplanets were smaller than

Neptune Neptune is the eighth and farthest known planet from the Sun. It is the List of Solar System objects by size, fourth-largest planet in the Solar System by diameter, the third-most-massive planet, and the densest giant planet. It is 17 t ...

and four, including ''Kepler-296f'', were less than 2 1/2 the size of

Earth Earth is the third planet from the Sun and the only astronomical object known to Planetary habitability, harbor life. This is enabled by Earth being an ocean world, the only one in the Solar System sustaining liquid surface water. Almost all ...

and were in habitable zones where surface temperatures are suitable for liquid

water Water is an inorganic compound with the chemical formula . It is a transparent, tasteless, odorless, and Color of water, nearly colorless chemical substance. It is the main constituent of Earth's hydrosphere and the fluids of all known liv ...

. File:KnownExoplanets-Sizes-20160510.jpg, Bar graph of Exoplanets by size - the gold bars represent Kepler's latest newly verified exoplanets (May 10, 2016). File:ExoplanetDiscoveries-Histogram-20160510.jpg, Bar graph of Exoplanet Discoveries - gold bar displays new planets "verified by multiplicity" (May 10, 2016). On May 10, 2016, NASA announced that the Kepler mission has verified 1,284 new planets. Based on some of the planet's sizes, about 550 could potentially be rocky planets. Nine of these orbit in their stars'

habitable zone In astronomy and astrobiology, the habitable zone (HZ), or more precisely the circumstellar habitable zone (CHZ), is the range of orbits around a star within which a planetary surface can support liquid water given sufficient atmospheric pressu ...

Lists

All exoplanets discovered lie in one of the three northern

constellation A constellation is an area on the celestial sphere in which a group of visible stars forms Asterism (astronomy), a perceived pattern or outline, typically representing an animal, mythological subject, or inanimate object. The first constellati ...

s of Cygnus,

Lyra , from ; pronounced: ) is a small constellation. It is one of the 48 listed by the 2nd century astronomer Ptolemy, and is one of the modern 88 constellations recognized by the International Astronomical Union. Lyra was often represented on star ...

and Draco, which belong to Kepler's

photometer A photometer is an instrument that measures the strength of electromagnetic radiation in the range from ultraviolet to infrared and including the visible spectrum. Most photometers convert light into an electric current using a photoresistor, ...

's field of view. * List of exoplanets discovered by the Kepler space telescope: 1–500 * List of exoplanets discovered by the Kepler space telescope: 501–1000 * List of exoplanets discovered by the Kepler space telescope: 1001–1500 * List of exoplanets discovered by the Kepler space telescope: 1501–2000 * List of exoplanets discovered by the Kepler space telescope: 2001–2500

References

Footnotes Citations

External links

Kepler - Discoveries - Summary Table
{{Portal bar, Astronomy, Stars, Spaceflight, Outer space, Solar System *

Lists

See also

References

External links