How do astronomers find planets around other stars?

As of November 2026, 4,785 of the 6,451 confirmed exoplanets, about 74%, were found by the transit method: a telescope sees a star dim slightly as a planet passes in front of it. Radial velocity, which spots a star's slight wobble as a planet tugs on it, found 1,204. Only 98 have been photographed directly (imaging).

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Key facts

Measure: Confirmed exoplanets. Written from the data below.

  • Transit has the highest figure, 4,785, followed by Radial Velocity (1,204) and Microlensing (292).
  • Disk Kinematics has the lowest figure, 1, followed by Pulsation Timing Variations (2) and Astrometry (6).
  • The highest is 4,785 times the lowest.

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Source and date

Source
NASA Exoplanet Archive, Planetary Systems Composite Data
License
Public domain (NASA data); this research has made use of the NASA Exoplanet Archive, operated by Caltech under contract with NASA
Data as of
Published

Citation

Chartly. “How do astronomers find planets around other stars?” Chart. Data: NASA Exoplanet Archive, Planetary Systems Composite Data, https://exoplanetarchive.ipac.caltech.edu/cgi-bin/TblView/nph-tblView?app=ExoTbls&config=PSCompPars (data as of November 4, 2026). https://chart.ly/charts/how-exoplanets-are-found (accessed November 4, 2026).

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The data

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The file has the numbers in this table, with the source, license and date. Please credit the source and Chartly. Developers can also get them as JSON (how).

Discovery method Confirmed exoplanets
Transit 4,785
Radial Velocity 1,204
Microlensing 292
Imaging 98
Transit Timing Variations 29
Eclipse Timing Variations 17
Orbital Brightness Modulation 9
Pulsar Timing 8
Astrometry 6
Pulsation Timing Variations 2
Disk Kinematics 1

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