Extrasolar Planets

The first Extrasolar Plants, or Exo Planet, were discovered in 1992. The discovery included several small planets orbiting a Pulsar. It wasn’t until 1995 when a giant planet was found in a four-day orbit around the nearby star 51 Pegasi. As of May 2012, a total of 770 confirmed exoplanets are listed in the Extrasolar Planets Encyclopaedia. That count includes 614 planets in planetary systems and 104 planets within multiple planetary systems. As of February 2012, NASA’s Kepler mission had identified 2,321 unconfirmed planetary candidates associated with 1,790 host stars.