PSR B1257+12 b/c/d
1992· 2,300 lyThe first confirmed exoplanets of any kind — pulsar-timing worlds detected three years before 51 Peg b.
Discovered by Aleksander Wolszczan & Dale FrailArecibo Observatory
Wolszczan & Frail, Nature 355, 145 (1992)
The catalog — discovered worlds
Exoplanets, and who found them
Landmark confirmed planets beyond the Sun — each credited to its discoverers, method, and facility, from the first pulsar worlds (1992) to the first JWST confirmation (2023). The live frontier of thousands of unconfirmed candidates is Deep Field.
radial velocitytimingtransitdirect imagingmicrolensing
51 Pegasi b
1995· 50.45 lyThe first exoplanet found around a Sun-like star — a hot Jupiter that won the 2019 Nobel Prize in Physics.
Discovered by Michel Mayor & Didier QuelozELODIE spectrograph, Observatoire de Haute-Provence
Mayor & Queloz, Nature 378, 355 (1995)
HD 209458 b (Osiris)
1999· 157 lyThe first exoplanet observed transiting its star, and the first with a detected atmosphere.
Discovered by David Charbonneau, Timothy Brown, et al.STARE / Hubble Space Telescope
Charbonneau et al., ApJ 529, L45 (2000)
OGLE-2005-BLG-390Lb
2006· 21,500 lyA cold super-Earth found by gravitational microlensing — proof the method reaches low-mass, distant worlds.
Discovered by Jean-Philippe Beaulieu et al.OGLE / PLANET / RoboNet networks
Beaulieu et al., Nature 439, 437 (2006)
WASP-12b
2008· 1,410 lyAn ultra-hot Jupiter being tidally shredded and devoured by its star — an extreme of the hot-Jupiter class.
Discovered by Leslie Hebb et al. (SuperWASP)SuperWASP
Hebb et al., ApJ 693, 1920 (2009)
Kepler-186f
2014· 580 lyThe first Earth-sized planet found in the habitable zone of another star.
Discovered by Elisa Quintana et al.Kepler Space Telescope
Quintana et al., Science 344, 277 (2014)
Kepler-452b
2015· 1,400 lyAn Earth-cousin: a super-Earth in the habitable zone of a Sun-like G2 star.
Discovered by Jon Jenkins et al.Kepler Space Telescope
Jenkins et al., AJ 150, 56 (2015)
51 Eridani b
2015· 96 lyA young Jupiter imaged directly — methane-rich, a benchmark for planet-formation models.
Discovered by Bruce Macintosh et al.Gemini Planet Imager
Macintosh et al., Science 350, 64 (2015)
Proxima Centauri b
2016· 4.24 lyThe nearest known exoplanet — a temperate, roughly Earth-mass world around the closest star to the Sun.
Discovered by Guillem Anglada-Escudé et al.HARPS / UVES (Pale Red Dot campaign)
Anglada-Escudé et al., Nature 536, 437 (2016)
TRAPPIST-1 e
2017· 40.7 lyOne of seven Earth-sized planets around an ultracool dwarf — three in the habitable zone; a landmark for atmospheric study.
Discovered by Michaël Gillon et al.TRAPPIST / Spitzer Space Telescope
Gillon et al., Nature 542, 456 (2017)
π Mensae c
2018· 59.6 lyTESS's first discovered planet — a hot super-Earth around a naked-eye star. Rediscoverable in THE FIELD's Deep Field workstation.
Discovered by Chelsea Huang et al.TESS (first TESS planet)
Huang et al., ApJ 868, L39 (2018)
LHS 475 b
2023· 41 lyThe first exoplanet confirmed by JWST — an Earth-sized rocky world.
Discovered by Kevin Stevenson & Jacob Lustig-YaegerJames Webb Space Telescope (first JWST confirmation)
Lustig-Yaeger, Stevenson et al., ApJ 954, L4 (2023)
12 landmark worlds. Discoverers and years are from the discovery publications; large teams are represented by lead author + facility. Source of record: the NASA Exoplanet Archive. Want to reproduce one? Rediscover π Men c in Deep Field →