NASA
Exoplanet Exploration
Skip Navigation
menu close modal

Multimedia

Coronagraph explanation 2 minutes

An animation explaining how the hybrid Lyot coronagraph works. Watch the longer version here.

Related

This slide explains and illustrates what a "habitable zone" is, and how it would change based on the size of the host star.
More
Habitable zone
Habitable Zones Compared to the Size of the Hosting Star
This diagram shows how astronomers observed a distant gas giant planet around OGLE-2005-BLG-169 using microlensing.
More
Identification of Exoplanet Host Star OGLE-2005-BLG-169
Identification of Exoplanet Host Star OGLE-2005-BLG-169
This graph of data from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope shows how astronomers located a hot spot on a distant gas planet named upsilon Andromedae b -- and learned that it was in the wrong place.
More
How to Find a Planetary Hot Spot
How to Find a Planetary Hot Spot
The Kepler space telescope will remain for decades in orbit around the Sun, weaving in and out of Earth’s orbital path.
More
Video animation showing the final orbit of the Kepler space telescope around the Sun.
NASA's Kepler Space Telescope: Final Orbit
A graphic of present and future exoplanet missions from space agencies and observatories around the world.
More
A picture of future missions.
Exoplanet missions
On March 21, 2022, the number of known exoplanets passed 5,000 according to the NASA Exoplanet Archive. This animation and sonification tracks humanity's discovery of the planets beyond our solar s...
More
Video infographic showing numbers of exoplanet discoveries over time.
Video: 5,000 Exoplanets: Listen to the Sounds of Discovery (NASA Data Sonification)
The first extra-solar planet detected around a star similar to the Sun was 51 Peg. It has about the mass of Jupiter. But unlike Jupiter, which is five times as far from the Sun as Earth and orbits ...
More
Hot Jupiter
Hot Jupiter
When we describe different types of exoplanets – planets outside our solar system – what do we mean by "hot Jupiters," "warm Neptunes," and "super-Earths"? 
More
When we describe different types of exoplanets – planets outside our solar system – what do we mean by "hot Jupiters," "warm Neptunes," and "super-Earths"?
Video: Exoplanet Types: Worlds Beyond Our Solar System
A possible newfound planet spins through a clearing in a nearby star's dusty, planet-forming disc.
More
Out of the Dust, A Planet is Born
Out of the Dust, A Planet is Born
The artist's concept depicts Kepler-62f, a super-Earth-size planet in the habitable zone of a star smaller and cooler than the sun, located about 1,200 light-years from Earth in the constellation L...
More
Kepler-62f, a Small Habitable Zone World (Artist Concept)
Kepler-62f, a Small Habitable Zone World (Artist Concept)
Jupiter-size exoplanets orbiting close to their stars have upended ideas about how giant planets form. Finding young members of this planet class could help answer key questions.
More
This artist's rendering shows a type of gas giant planet known as a hot Jupiter that orbits very close to its star. Finding more of these youthful planets could help astronomers understand how they formed and if they migrate from cooler climes during their lifetimes.
Young Hot Jupiter
On this episode of Q&Alien, we talk about what the term "habitable zone" means - and what it doesn't.
More
Q&Alien - What's a "habitable zone"?
Q&Alien - What's a "habitable zone"?
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...
More
Extrasolar Planet Detected by Gravitational Microlensing
Extrasolar Planet Detected by Gravitational Microlensing
The basic chemistry for life has been detected in a second hot gas planet, HD 209458b, depicted in this artist's concept.
More
Exotic Atmospheres
Exotic Atmospheres
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...
More
Two planets transit in front of their star.
Transit Method Multiple Planets
This infrared data from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope called a spectrum tells astronomers that a distant gas planet, a so-called "hot Jupiter" called HD 209458b, might be smothered with high cloud...
More
Cracking the Code of Faraway Worlds: an Exoplanet Atmosphere
Cracking the Code of Faraway Worlds: an Exoplanet Atmosphere
An animation explaining how the hybrid Lyot coronagraph works. Watch the longer version here.
More
An animation explaining how the hybrid Lyot coronagraph works.
Coronagraph explanation 2 minutes
This artist's concept shows how astronomers use the unique orbit of NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope and a depth-perceiving trick called parallax to determine the distance of dark planets, black hole...
More
Depth Perception in Space
Depth Perception in Space
This slide illustrates how planets form from dust over a few hundred million years inside protoplanetary disks. Steps illustrated in this slide include planetesimal, protoplanets, giant, and rocky ...
More
an illustration of how planets form from dust over a few hundred million years
Planet Formation
This video shows an artist's impression of the free-floating planet CFBDSIR J214947.2-040308.9.
More
Artist's impression of the free-floating planet CFBDSIR J214947.2-040308.9
Artist's impression of the free-floating planet CFBDSIR J214947.2-040308.9
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.
More
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)
A unique feature of the seventh Kepler candidate catalog is that it is the first to fully automate the assessment of transit-like signals. The total height of each bar shows the total number of Kep...
More
Assessment of Kepler Dataset
Assessment of Kepler Dataset
The first planet to have its clouds mapped showed us what weather looked like on a planet outside our solar system.
More
Infographic: Planet Kepler-7b, cloud mapped
Infographic: Profile of planet Kepler-7b
Kepler is NASA’s 10th Discovery mission. It is designed specifically to detect Earth-size planets orbiting in the habitable zone of solar-like stars.
More
Delta 2 on Launchpad at night
Delta 2 on Launchpad at night
Weighing in at 11 times Jupiter’s mass and orbiting its star at 650 times the average Earth-Sun distance, planet HD 106906 b is unlike anything in our own Solar System and throws a wrench in planet...
More
Fly around animation of planet orbiting distant star.
HD 106906 b Planet Animation

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.
More

Strange New Worlds

Explore an interactive gallery of some of the most intriguing and exotic planets discovered so far.
More
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.
More

Stay Connected

What is an Exoplanet?

    • Overview
    • In Depth
    • Planet Types
    • Stars
    • What is the Universe?

The Search For Life

    • The Big Questions
    • Are We Alone?
    • Can We Find Life?
    • The Habitable Zone
    • Why We Search

Discovery

    • Discoveries Dashboard
    • How We Find and Characterize
    • Missions
    • People
    • Exoplanet Catalog

Explore

    • Exoplanet Travel Bureau
    • 5 Ways to Find a Planet
    • Eyes on Exoplanets
    • Strange New Worlds
    • Historic Timeline
    • Kepler Timeline
    • Universe of Monsters
    • Galaxy of Horrors

More

    • Multimedia Resources
    • News & Features
    • Blog
    • Glossary
    • Citizen Science

For Scientists

    • Exoplanet Exploration Program
    • Science Mission Directorate
  • Feedback
  • |
  • Sitemap
Managed by the Exoplanet Exploration Program and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory for NASA’s Astrophysics Division

Science Writer: Pat Brennan
Site Editor: Kristen Walbolt
Manager: Anya Biferno