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An exoplanet is a planet outside the Solar System that typically orbits a star, brown dwarf, or stellar remnant.
Exoplanets, or extrasolar planets, are planets located outside the Solar System. They orbit stars, brown dwarfs, or stellar remnants, although some planet-like objects drift freely through space as rogue planets. Exoplanets vary greatly in size, mass, composition, and orbital period, ranging from roughly Moon-sized worlds to objects many times more massive than Jupiter. Their orbits can last less than an hour or thousands of years, and some may orbit binary stars or even exist in other galaxies. Most exoplanets are detected indirectly, especially through transit photometry, which measures a star's dimming when a planet passes in front of it, and Doppler or radial-velocity spectroscopy, which measures a star's motion caused by a planet's gravity. These methods favor large planets close to their stars, though improved instruments have enabled the discovery of many smaller, farther worlds. Exoplanet research also investigates planetary atmospheres, surfaces, formation, and habitability, with particular interest in planets within a star's habitable zone, where liquid water might exist. However, being in this zone alone does not prove that a planet can support life.
An exoplanet is a planet outside the Solar System that typically orbits a star, brown dwarf, or stellar remnant.
Exoplanets span a wide range of masses, sizes, compositions, and orbital distances, including hot Jupiters, terrestrial planets, circumbinary planets, and potentially habitable worlds.
The most successful detection methods are transit photometry and radial-velocity measurements, but both methods have observational biases.
The habitable zone is the region around a star where conditions may allow liquid surface water, although habitability depends on many additional factors.
The official working definition generally distinguishes planets from brown dwarfs using mass limits and their relationship to the central object.
A planet located beyond the Solar System.
Another name for an exoplanet, emphasizing that it lies outside the Sun's planetary system.
A detection method that identifies an exoplanet by measuring the temporary dimming of its host star as the planet passes across the star's disk.
A detection method that measures periodic shifts in a star's spectrum caused by the gravitational pull of an orbiting planet.
The region around a star where temperatures may permit liquid water to exist on a planet's surface.
A planet-like object that is not gravitationally bound to a planetary system.
A substellar object that is too massive to be classified as a typical planet but not massive enough to sustain ordinary hydrogen fusion.
A gas-giant exoplanet with a short orbital period that travels very close to its host star.
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