Now that the Kepler spacecraft is on its way, we need some way to keep track of all the new planets we hope to discover. Well, do not fear because The Planetary Society is here to help. The Society has set up a new Catalog of Exoplanets to store information on all the new discoveries. This Catalog will include essential information about each exoplanet, such as : (1) planet's location and home star; (2) mass; (3) orbital period; (4) method by which it was detected; and (5) date of discovery. The Society notes that
Researchers have discovered more than 300 exoplanets to date. Most are gas giants hundreds of times the mass of the Earth, many orbiting very close to their home stars. But as the sensitivity of the search and the range of detection methods have increased, so has the variety of known exoplanets. Planetary systems composed of as many as five planets have been discovered, some of them sharing similarities with our own solar system. Planet-hunters are also detecting smaller and smaller planets, as small as twice the diameter of the Earth. As detection techniques improve, scientists are closing in on the exoplanet we are all waiting for: an alien “Earth” orbiting a distant star.
