The more than 5,000 exoplanets confirmed in our galaxy so far include a variety of types – some that are similar to planets in our solar system, others vastly different.

An animation depicting various orbit geometries, some of which permit view of transits, and others that do not.

NASA has confirmed more than 5,000 worlds beyond our solar system during 30 years of exploration. There are billions of exoplanets in our galaxy alone, so many more discoveries await.

Algo extraño y misterioso se arrastra por el cosmos. Los científicos lo llaman materia oscura. 

This artist's conception depicts the Kepler-10 star system, located about 560 light-years away.

This artist's rendition shows one possible appearance for the planet HD 219134b, the nearest confirmed rocky exoplanet found to date outside our solar system.

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.

This artist's conception compares the KOI-961 planetary system to Jupiter and the largest four of its many moons. Image credit: Caltech

Depiction of a world completely covered with ocean.

Artist's rendering of the planetary system HR 8799 at an early stage of its evolution, showing the planet HR879cc, a disk of gas and dust, and interior planets.

¿Qué matices aparecerían bajo un sol rojo? ¿Qué colores te imaginas en el mundo ultracaliente de 55 Cancri e?  Si visitaras Kepler-16b, ¿qué colores crees que verías? ¿Qué tonos elegirás para co...

Astronomers were elated to find clear skies on a Neptune-size planet called HAT-P-11b, as illustrated here. Without clouds to block their view, they were able to identify water vapor molecules in t...

Kepler-10b must be a scorched world, orbiting at a distance that's more than 20 times closer to its star than Mercury is to our own Sun, with a daytime temperature expected to be more than 2,500 de...

If life exists on some of the exoplanets that Kepler finds, it may exist in forms similar to what we see in some of Earth's most extreme conditions.

Learn more in-depth features of Eyes on Exoplanets!

This video shows an artist's impression of the free-floating planet CFBDSIR J214947.2-040308.9.

A furled model of the first starshade built by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab is shown in an Astro Aerospace/Northrup Grumman facility in Santa Barbara, California in 2013.

Our Sun is just one out of over 200 billion stars in our galaxy, the Milky Way. The Sun is located in the Orion arm of our galaxy about 25,000 light years from the center of the Galaxy. Kepler will...

HD 80606b is a gas giant planet in an eccentric orbit around its star. Every 111 days, the planet passes within 2.8 million miles of the star's surface. Animated with dissolves between frames.

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

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

Learn more about cool tricks you can do in Eyes on Exoplanets.

Lurking beyond our solar system, among the billions of stars and the exoplanets that orbit them, is another sort of Milky Way altogether. Our "Galaxy of Horrors" reveals the sinister science behind...

We've wanted to study the TRAPPIST-1 exoplanets with the James Webb Space Telescope since its Christmas Day launch in 2021. We expect to see new science on the planets in the coming year.

The doomed egg-shaped exoplanet WASP-12b is a hot Jupiter that orbits so close to its parent star, it's being torn apart.