Since the first exoplanet1 was discovered in 1992, researchers have discovered over 6100 exoplanets, with over 7800 candidates awaiting confirmation. These planets were discovered using a variety of methods involving ground-based and space telescopes; these detection methods can more easily spot large planets (gas giants) that orbit close to their star – finding Earthlike planets has been elusive.
Two new surveys will hunt for Earth-sized planets, in an Earth-like orbit around a Sun-like stars; both of these surveys will measure stellar motions to an accuracy of 10 cm/sec – which is astounding when you are talking about stars that are many light years distant!
The Terra Hunting Experiment in the Canary Islands came online in December of 2025. It is a collaboration of a dozen research institutes led by Didier Queloz from the University of Cambridge. Queloz is an astrophysicist who shared the 2019 Nobel Prize in physics for the discovery of 51 Pegasi b in 1995 – the first exoplanet discovered orbiting a sunlike star. The survey will observe 50 sunlike stars every night for 10 years.
Aside: 51 Pegasi b is officially named Dimidium – click here to see an interactive 3D visualization of this exoplanet and its star system using NASA’s Eyes on Exoplanets web app.
The other survey is the Second Earth Spectrograph (2ES), which will be installed at the MPG/ESO 2.2m Telescope on La Silla, Chile in the southern hemisphere. The program will last 5 years, with access to 2/3 of the telescope’s observing time.
I found out about these surveys from a post by Corey S. Powell on Bluesky.
Near-future exoplanet research
Future exoplanet hunting missions include NASA’s Habitable Exoplanet Observatory, NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope (Roman), ESA’s PLATO (PLAnetary Transits and Oscillations of stars) mission, ESA’s Ariel (Atmospheric Remote-Sensing Infrared Exoplanet Large-survey), the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) Earth 2.0 (ET), and the Europe-based Large Interferometer for Exoplanets (LIFE) could zoom-in on exoplanets discovered by the Terra Hunting Experiment, to study their atmospheres for biosignatures.
The Vatican Observatory and Exoplanets
Recent Vatican Observatory Summer Schools, like the one in 2023, have given students experience with exoplanet research and analyzing large survey datasets; the 2025 summer school included hands-on tutorials for JWST data processing and analysis; the JWST has captured spectra for hundreds of exoplanets as of January 2026.
Didier Queloz (mentioned above) was an instructor for the 2007 summer school, whose theme was Extrasolar Planets and Brown Dwarfs. (A LOT has happened in the field of exoplanet research in the decade since this summer school.)
Fr. Paul Gabor, SJ, is the vice director of the Vatican Observatory; his main area of research is exoplanets and the development of the instrumentation used in the study of them; he also teaches the history of astronomy at the University of Arizona. Fr. Gabor organized a conference titled “Search for Life Beyond the Solar System: Exoplanets, Biosignatures & Instruments” which was held in Tucson in March of 2014.
Vatican Observatory adjunct scholar Dante Minniti was a member of a team of astronomers from Europe, the US, Chile, and Australia who discovered a planetary system around a nearby M-class red dwarf star with at least one super-Earth planet orbiting within its habitable zone. This star, GJ 667C, is a triple-star system located 22 light years from Earth.
Image, left to right: sister exoplanets GJ 667 C e and GJ 667 C d, and red dwarf binary GJ 667 B and GJ 667 A. Red dwarf GJ 667 C (the trinary of the system) is off-image to the left, illuminating the exoplanet.
Exoplanet Resources
The NASA Exoplanet Archive is an online astronomical exoplanet and stellar catalog and data service that collates and cross-correlates astronomical data and information on exoplanets and their host stars, and provides tools to work with these data. The site allows you to easily browse through exoplanet data.
NASA Eyes on Exoplanets is a web-based 3D interactive app allowing you to view visualizations of exoplanets and their star systems.
Related
Article: Core Survey by NASA’s Roman Mission Will Unveil Universe’s Dark Side (Feb 10, 2026)
JPL retro travel poster for 51 Pegasi b:
- The first indirect evidence for the existence of an exoplanet was obtained in 1917 around the white dwarf Van Maanen’s star, but it was not recognized as such until decades later. ↩︎
JPL’s Visions of the Future retro travel posters feature several exoplanet and solar system locations – they look great on office and classroom walls!
