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5 Ways to Find a Planet- Transits

The Kepler mission found 1,284 new planets via the transit method. When a planet passes directly between its star and an observer, it dims the star's light by a measurable amount.

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This infographic explains how NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope can be used in tandem with a telescope on the ground to measure the distances to planets discovered using the "microlensing" technique.
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Infographic: Finding Planets With Microlensing
Infographic: Finding Planets With Microlensing
An animation explaining how the hybrid Lyot coronagraph works. Watch the longer version here.
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An animation explaining how the hybrid Lyot coronagraph works.
Coronagraph explanation 2 minutes
Video of the Kepler spacecraft launch from March 2009.
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Kepler Misson Launch
Kepler Misson Launch
This graph of data from NASA's Spitzer Space telescope shows changes in the infrared light output of two star-planet systems (one above, one below) located hundreds of light-years away.
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The Language of Planetary Light
The Language of Planetary Light
A team of researchers has devised a way to measure the internal properties of stars—a method that offers more accurate assessments of their orbiting planets.
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Verified by vibration
Verified by vibration
Animation of Kepler spacecraft slowly rotating in space.
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Kepler "Beauty Shot"
Kepler "Beauty Shot"
This artist's concept illustrates the hottest planet yet observed in the Universe. The scorching ball of gas, a "hot Jupiter" called HD 149026b, is about 3 times hotter than the surface of Venus.
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Blacker than Black
Blacker than Black
This is an artist's concept of a hypothetical 10-million-year-old star system. The bright blur at the center is a star much like our sun. The other orb in the image is a gas-giant planet like Jupit...
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Gas Giants Form Quickly
Gas Giants Form Quickly
The third closest star system to the sun, called WISE J104915.57-531906, is at the center of the larger image, which was taken by NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE). It appeared to b...
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Brown Dwarfs in our 'Backyard'
Brown Dwarfs in our 'Backyard'
This slide explains and illustrates what a "habitable zone" is, and how it would change based on the size of the host star.
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Habitable zone
Habitable Zones Compared to the Size of the Hosting Star
This slide explains the three different types of black holes.
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A slide explaining the three different types of black holes.
Black Holes: Three Kinds
Using NASA’s Hubble Telescope, scientists detected a stratosphere on the planet WASP-33b. A stratosphere occurs when molecules in the atmosphere absorb ultraviolet and visible light from the star. ...
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Hubble Detects "Sunscreen" Layer on Distant Planet
Hubble Detects "Sunscreen" Layer on Distant Planet
When a planet passes directly between a star and its observer, it dims the star's light by a measurable amount. Light curves get complicated when more planets are transiting a star. The combined li...
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transit method different planet sizes video
Transit Method Different Planet Sizes
This graph shows the brightness variations of the brown dwarf named 2MASSJ22282889-431026 measured simultaneously by both NASA's Hubble and Spitzer space telescopes.
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Probing Brown Dwarf Layers
Probing Brown Dwarf Layers
Daniel Fabrycky from the Kepler science team put together a visualization of all the multiple-planet systems discovered by the Kepler spacecraft as of February of 2011.
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Kepler Orrery II
Kepler Orrery II
This false-color near-infrared image has been processed to remove most of the scattered light from the star Kappa Andromedae to reveal its "super-Jupiter" companion, Kappa Andromedae b.
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Image of the "super-Jupiter" Kappa Andromedae b
Image of the "super-Jupiter" Kappa Andromedae b
Our Milky Way galaxy contains a minimum of 100 billion planets according to a detailed statistical study based on the detection of three extrasolar planets by an observational technique called micr...
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Extrasolar Planet Detected by Gravitational Microlensing
Extrasolar Planet Detected by Gravitational Microlensing
Researchers have detected the first "exomoon" candidate -- a moon orbiting a planet that lies outside our solar system. Using a technique called "microlensing," they observed what could be either a...
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Moon or Planet? The 'Exomoon Hunt' Continues (Artist's Concept)
Moon or Planet? The 'Exomoon Hunt' Continues (Artist's Concept)
Audience: 3rd grade and older This slide shows the difference in temperature between planets orbiting an M Dwarf star and our Sun. The second view shows their relative distance from their star.
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This slide shows the difference in temperature between planets orbiting an M Dwarf star and our Sun. The second view shows their relative distance from their star.
Comparison of Host Stars with Solar System Planets (F and C)
This is the animated storybook tale of the Spitzer spacecraft and its exploits as part of the space telescope superteam known as NASA’s Great Observatories, which also includes Hubble, Chandra and ...
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An animated superhero video showing the Spitzer Space Telescope along with Hubble, Chandra and Compton observing the universe with their special powers of observation.
Spitzer and NASA's ‘Great Observatories' Space Telescopes
An animation depicting various orbit geometries, some of which permit view of transits, and others that do not.
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Range of Views
Range of Views
This image from NASA's Kepler mission shows the telescope's full field of view -- an expansive star-rich patch of sky in the constellations Cygnus and Lyra.
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Full Focal Plane Image (First Light for Kepler Photometer)
Full Focal Plane Image (First Light for Kepler Photometer)
Like ancient explorers who looked to the stars to guide them to new worlds, astronomers today use stars to discover worlds many light years beyond our solar system. By studying stars and their uniq...
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Illustrations of different star types
The Lives of Stars
Audience: 3rd grade and older This slide compares the difference in size between planets in our solar system and with three kinds of exoplanets: Super Earth,  Neptunian and Gas Giants.
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This slide compares the difference in size between planets in our solar system and with three kinds of exoplanets: Super Earth, Neptunian and Gas Giants.
Comparison of Planet Sizes: Exoplanets
Scientists using NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope have found evidence that a planet orbiting a distant star that may have lost its atmosphere but gained a second one through volcanic activity.
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GJ 1132 b’s hot interior, the team believes means the planet’s cooler, overlying crust is extremely thin, perhaps only hundreds of feet thick. That’s much too feeble to support anything resembling volcanic mountains. Its flat terrain may also be cracked like an eggshell due to tidal flexing. Hydrogen and other gases could be released through such cracks.
Hubble Finds Evidence that a New Atmosphere May Have Formed on a Rocky Exoplanet (no text)

Explore Alien Worlds

Exoplanet Travel Bureau

This set of travel posters envision a day when the creativity of scientists and engineers will allow us to do things we can only dream of now.
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Strange New Worlds

Explore an interactive gallery of some of the most intriguing and exotic planets discovered so far.
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A planetary tour through time. The ancients debated the existence of planets beyond our own; now we know of thousands.

Historic Timeline

A planetary tour through time. The ancients debated the existence of planets beyond our own; now we know of thousands.
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