Skip Navigation

Multimedia

Infographic: Profile of planet 51 Pegasi b

Infographic: Profile of planet 51 Pegasi b

The first exoplanet discovered around a sun-like star, 51 Pegasi b made us question what we knew of our universe and launched the search for new worlds.

Credit

NASA/JPL-Caltech

ENLARGE

Related

This artist's conception illustrates a Jupiter-like planet alone in the dark of space, floating freely without a parent star.
More
Free-Floating Planets May be More Common Than Stars
Free-Floating Planets May be More Common Than Stars
In the star cluster NGC 6811, astronomers have found two planets smaller than Neptune orbiting sun-like stars.
More
First Transiting Planets in a Star Cluster Discovered
First Transiting Planets in a Star Cluster Discovered
Scientists were excited to discover clear skies on a relatively small planet, about the size of Neptune, using the combined power of NASA's Hubble, Spitzer and Kepler space telescopes.
More
A Sunny Outlook for 'Weather' on Exoplanets (Artist's Concept)
A Sunny Outlook for 'Weather' on Exoplanets (Artist's Concept)
Astronomers using the Hubble Space Telescope have made the first direct detection of the atmosphere of a planet orbiting a star outside our solar system. The planet orbits a yellow, Sun-like star c...
More
HD 209458b
HD 209458b
During 9.6 years in orbit, the Kepler space telescope observed more than half a million stars and discovered more than 2,600 planets. See the mission by the numbers.
More
Kepler was in orbit 9.6 years, used 3.12 gallons of fuel, observed 530,506 stars and led to the discovery of 2,662 planets.
NASA's Kepler Mission By the Numbers
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
For the first time since exoplanets, or planets around stars other than the sun, were discovered almost 20 years ago, X-ray observations have detected an exoplanet passing in front of its parent st...
More
Exo-eclipse in x-ray vision
Exo-eclipse in x-ray vision
Keep your Valentine close with a tidally-locked planet, that always faces its star.
More
Illustration of a tidally-locked planet.
Tidally-locked Valentine
A whole new category of planets, Super Earths are quite common in our galaxy.
More
Super Earth—Super Girth
Super Earth—Super Girth
Some giant planets, many times the size of Jupiter, are puffed up.
More
Less Mass, More Gas
Less Mass, More Gas
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
This artist's conception shows the 30 Ari system, which includes four stars and a planet.
More
Planet With Four Stars (Artist's Concept)
Planet With Four Stars (Artist's Concept)
This image from NASA's Kepler spacecraft shows the telescope's field of view taken in a new demonstration mode in late October. A new mission concept, dubbed K2, would continue Kepler's search for ...
More
NASA Kepler's Second Light
NASA Kepler's Second Light
PSO J318.5-22 belongs to a special class of planets called rogue, or free-floating, planets. Wandering alone in the galaxy, they do not orbit a parent star.  These rogue planets glow faintly from t...
More
PSO J318.5-22
Where the Nightlife Never Ends
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)
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.
More
The Language of Planetary Light
The Language of Planetary Light
This artist's concept shows the searing-hot gas planet WASP-12b (orange orb) and its star.
More
Hot, Carbon-Rich Planet
Hot, Carbon-Rich Planet
Twelve Exoplanet discoveries from Kepler that are less than twice the size of Earth and reside in the habitable zone of their host star. The sizes of the exoplanets are represented by the size of e...
More
Kepler's Greatest Hits
Kepler's Greatest Hits
These plots from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope show light from a distant planet, GJ 436b, and its star, as measured at six different infrared wavelengths.
More
How to Measure Exoplanet Light
How to Measure Exoplanet Light
NASA's Kepler mission has discovered the first Earth-size planets orbiting a sun-like star outside our solar system.
More
Kepler-20f
Kepler-20f
This sculpture by Angela Palmer is created from the data gathered to date by the Kepler telescope. It literally reproduces in three dimensions the chunk of sky the Kepler telescope has been trained...
More
Goldilocks
Goldilocks
The top graph consists of infrared data from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope. It tells astronomers that a distant planet, called Upsilon Andromedae b, always has a giant hot spot on the side that fa...
More
The Light and Dark Sides of a Distant Planet
The Light and Dark Sides of a Distant Planet
Astronomers detect lowest-mass planet around a star like the sun found using direct imaging techniques.
More
Image of gas giant GJ 504b (annotated)
Image of gas giant GJ 504b (annotated)
The "super-Jupiter" Kappa Andromedae b, shown here in an artist's rendering, circles its star at nearly twice the distance that Neptune orbits the sun. With a mass about 13 times Jupiter's, the obj...
More
Artist's rendering of the "super-Jupiter" Kappa Andromedae b
Artist's rendering of the "super-Jupiter" Kappa Andromedae b
The Kepler spacecraft, responsible for thousands of new potential disoveries.
More
Kepler Spacecraft
Kepler Spacecraft

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