The first confirmed extrasolar planets were found in 1992 by Aleksander Wolszczan and Dale Frail, who discovered two planets around the pulsar PSR B1257+12, later named Phoebetor and Poltergeist.
Then, in 1995, the first exoplanet around a Sun-like star followed, found by Didier Queloz and Michel Mayor around 51 Pegasi. This planet, about half as massive as Jupiter but on an orbit roughly one seventh the size of Mercury, was later named Dimidium. It kicked off an age of exoplanet discoveries that is going to this day.
In the following years, milestones kept coming. In 2001, the first planet in the habitable zone was discovered – HD28185b, although it was a planet about six times the mass of Jupiter. The same year saw the first measurement of an exoplanet’s atmosphere composition (HD 209458b).
Dedicated telescopes for searching for extrasolar planets went into service, such as CoRoT (2006-2013), Kepler (2009-2018) or TESS (since 2018). At present, as of August 2022, there are over 5000 confirmed extrasolar planets.
For a vastly more detailed timeline of exoplanet research, click here.
Malcolm Fridlund talks about “Exoplanets from an historical perspective” in the SPP 1992 Webinar.
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