Number of extrasolar planet discoveries per year.

The following are lists of stars with confirmed extrasolar planets.

Extrasolar planets were first confirmed to be orbiting the pulsars PSR B1257+12 and PSR B1620-26. These discoveries were announced in 1992 and 1993 respectively. The first extrasolar planet to be found orbiting a normal star, 51 Pegasi b, was first discovered to be orbiting 51 Pegasi in 1995.

Note that the masses of the planets are (for the most part) lower bounds only. If a planet is detected by the radial velocity method, no information is gained about the inclination of the planet's plane of orbit around its star, and a value for this is needed to calculate the mass. It has become customary to assume arbitrarily that the plane is exactly lined up with the line of sight from Earth (this produces the lowest possible mass consistent with the spectral line measurements).

There are 317 planets listed - 2 are located in circumbinary orbits (1 around a binary consisting of a pulsar and a white dwarf, 1 around a binary consisting of a subdwarf B star and a red dwarf), the others orbit around one star only. Of the latter category, 311 orbit normal stars (81 in multiple planetary systems, and 230 in single planetary systems), 3 orbiting pulsars, 1 orbiting a subdwarf B star and 1 orbiting a brown dwarf.

The planets are listed with indications of their approximate masses as multiples of Jupiter's mass (M_J = 1.8986 × 10²⁷ kg) or multiples of Earth's mass (M_E = 5.9736 × 10²⁴ kg), and have approximate distances in astronomical units (1 AU = 1.496 × 10⁸ km, distance between Earth and Sun) from their parent stars. For more information on how planets may be detected, see extrasolar planet#detection methods.

At the moment, according to the International Astronomical Union, there is no agreed system for designating planets orbiting around other stars, nor is there any plan to create a naming system for extra-solar planets [1]. A trend that is gaining prominence uses a lower-case letter (starting with "b") to extend the star's designation. For example, 16 Cygni Bb is the first extrasolar planet found around the star 16 Cygni B, itself a member of the triple star system 16 Cygni. Some extrasolar planets have been given unofficial names, but these are not sanctioned by the IAU which oversees astronomical naming, or used in the scientific literature.

Extrasolar planets

There are 67 known extrasolar planets for which the true mass is estimatable. The majority of these transit their stars, enabling determination of the inclination of their orbits and hence the true ratio of the masses of the planets to their parent stars. Given a firm determination of the parent star's parallax and some independent means of measuring the star's mass, an absolute value can be derived for the planet's mass. Note also that eclipsing binaries can only have their masses securely determined if spectra for both objects exist, whereas a planet will not have spectra, see for example the introduction in ISBS. Transiting planets enable some confidence to be expressed in the lower limit of the spectroscopically determined mass being near to the real value, as inclination is perforce near edge on to the line of sight, however as a transiting system is still essentially a single line spectroscopic binary it is the mass function, and not the mass, that is being determined, see section on single line spectroscopic binaries here. The mass is dependent on a solid determination of the parent star's mass, a value that is generally not well known for singleton stars.

Others have been detected via astrometry, such as Epsilon Eridani b. The planets around OGLE-2003-BLG-235L/MOA-2003-BLG-53L, OGLE-2005-BLG-071L and OGLE-2006-BLG-109L were detected through gravitational microlensing, a method which gives the ratio of the mass of the planet to that of the parent star. In these three cases, the parent star has been directly detected, enabling a determination of the actual mass of the system and confirming the companions' planetary nature. The upper limit on the detected flux from MOA-2007-BLG-400L constrains its mass to be less than 0.75 solar masses if it is a main sequence star. Planets "B" and "C" orbiting the pulsar PSR B1257+12 have their masses determined by detection of their gravitational effects on each other. 2M1207b's mass is derived from evolutionary models of substellar objects. The mass of all single stars are derived from evolutionary models.

Sorted by increasing right ascension of the parent star. Planets within a system sorted by increasing orbital period. Planets in multiple-planet systems are highlighted in yellow. Inclinations with + means orbit has at least that inclination.

Candidate extrasolar planets

There are currently 250 known objects which are candidate extrasolar planets. The majority of these objects have been detected using the radial velocity method and consequently their true masses are unknown. This means that some of these objects may in fact be brown dwarfs or even dim red dwarf stars. Although, planets with rather edge-on orbits to observer would be more common than rather face-on orbits, so most planets will have their true masses less than twice that of their minimum masses. Others have been detected via gravitational microlensing, for which only the mass ratio between the planet and the parent star is known. If the parent star has not been detected, the planet's true mass is unknown.

There are currently 180 known candidate planets in single planetary systems and 72 known candidate planets in 32 multiple planetary systems (21 with two planets, 9 with three, 1 with four, and 1 with five). Since detection methods are not sensitive to low-mass planets, these stars may have smaller planets that are below the limits of detectability, or are so far from the star that they have not yet been observed over an orbital period.

Sorted by increasing right ascension of the parent star. Planets within a system sorted by increasing orbital period. Planets in multiple-planet systems are highlighted in yellow.