History of Planet Detection in one 60 sec GIF

[Underseer]

http://www.iflscience.com/space/history-planet-detection-60-second-gif

Dark blue: Solar system planets.
Light blue: RV planets.
Maroon: Direct Imaging planets.
Orange: Microlensing discoveries.
Green: Planets found via the transit method.

 

[rjh01]

Most planets would be missed using the transit method. If the planet moves around its sun in only a slightly different orbit then it would no longer go between the earth and its sun. To put it another way, if the only way we could detect Venus was this method, we would see it only twice every 243 years or so. If we were further away (like orbiting another star) then it would be even more rare.

 

[lpetrich]

Notice also that most of the detections are to the top and left of the Solar System, with Jupiter being the biggest exception. That means that with present-day technology, we could only see Jupiter.

 

[Underseer]

Notice also that most of the detections are to the top and left of the Solar System, with Jupiter being the biggest exception. That means that with present-day technology, we could only see Jupiter.

That just means they're mostly detecting high mass planets that are relatively close to their stars. Given the difficulty of detecting extrasolar planets, this is hardly surprising.

 

[Malintent]

Notice also that most of the detections are to the top and left of the Solar System, with Jupiter being the biggest exception. That means that with present-day technology, we could only see Jupiter.

That just means they're mostly detecting high mass planets that are relatively close to their stars. Given the difficulty of detecting extrasolar planets, this is hardly surprising.

.. and is also a expected effect of the method of detection.. using the wobble method of detection, only large planets that orbit very close to their star would be detected, until the technology is / was refined to detect smaller and more distantly orbiting planets.