GRIDINT Research · Science

The other earths.

Humanity has confirmed 6,354 planets around other stars, and this report reads the whole catalog. The shape of what we know is really the shape of how we looked: one spacecraft’s program found — of everything ever discovered, one detection method carries — of the record — and the gaps in the field below are instruments, not astronomy. Every figure on this page is computed from the catalog at render time.

published 2026-08-27 · data cutoff 2026-08-26 · edition 1 — updated only by a new dated edition · source: NASA Exoplanet Archive

THE YEARS

Three decades of discovery, one method at a time.

Confirmed planets by discovery year, stacked by method. The story has eras: radial velocity opened the field, then Kepler’s transits buried it — the 2014 and 2016 spikes are one telescope’s catalogs landing. The chips isolate any method; the slider sets the first year.

A1Discoveries per year, stacked by method
WHAT YOU ARE LOOKING AT One column per year since 1992 — and yes, the first confirmed planets predate 51 Pegasi: they orbit a pulsar. Cyan is transit, amber radial velocity, violet microlensing, pink direct imaging, gray everything else. Tap or hover any segment.
FROM YEAR 1992
sourceNASA Exoplanet Archive, confirmed planets · discovery year + method as cataloged methodcounts are confirmations — a spike is often a catalog release, and the lede says so
THE FIELD

Every world with a size and a year.

Orbital period against planet radius, both on log scales — — worlds at once. The dense island of short-period giants, the continent of Kepler’s small worlds, the sparse frontier of long orbits — and the empty lanes, which are detection limits, not nature. The method says which is which.

B1Period × radius, log–log — color is discovery method
WHAT YOU ARE LOOKING AT Each dot is a confirmed planet with both values cataloged. X is orbital period (days, log); Y is radius (Earth = 1, log). Transit finds small and close; radial velocity finds heavy; imaging finds far and young — the colors ARE the instruments’ signatures. Tap or hover any world.
sourcesame catalog · rows missing either value are absent by honesty (— lack one) methodlog10 axes · no jitter, no sampling — every plottable world drawn
ONE SPACECRAFT

Kepler is half of everything.

Group the catalog by discovery facility and one fact dominates: the Kepler program — the prime mission plus its K2 reprise — accounts for — of every confirmed planet in history. TESS is building the next shelf; everything else shares the remainder.

C1Confirmed planets by discovery facility — the top ten
WHAT YOU ARE LOOKING AT Facilities ranked by confirmed planets. The two Kepler bars are drawn in one hue on purpose — one spacecraft, two missions. Tap or hover for counts and shares.
sourcesame catalog · facility as cataloged
THE NEAREST

The hundred closest worlds.

Sorted by distance, the nearest hundred confirmed planets — the ones any future actually reaches for. Deliberately the last data view: a table is the record, not the story.

D1The nearest hundred — edition 1
sourceNASA Exoplanet Archive · distances in parsecs as cataloged · blank = not measured
METHOD

How this was made, and its limits.

The data: NASA’s Exoplanet Archive, confirmed planets only, pulled by our warehouse on schedule and rendered without editorial touch. Every figure on this page is computed from the full catalog in your browser. The cards are the limits, stated.

Detection bias IS the shape
Transit favors close-in planets around quiet stars; imaging favors young giants far out. The field’s structure maps instruments before it maps nature.
Confirmed only
Thousands of candidates are excluded. A spike in the years chart is often a validation batch landing, not a discovery season.
Missing values stay missing
Worlds without a cataloged radius or period are absent from the field and say so — never imputed.
Distances are estimates
Parsec figures carry the archive’s own uncertainties; the ledger prints them as cataloged.
The current year is partial
The last column is still filling — drawn as it stands, never extrapolated.
FINDINGS

Four things the catalog shows.

1One spacecraft found half of everything. Kepler and its K2 reprise account for — of all — confirmed planets — a single instrument’s field of view, stared at long enough, out-discovered the rest of astronomy combined. → one spacecraft, C1
2The record has eras, and they are instruments. Radial velocity owned the field’s first fifteen years; the transit method now carries — of the catalog. Method share is a history of telescopes, not of planets. → the years, A1
3The field’s gaps are limits, not absences. The empty lanes in period × radius — long-period small worlds above all — are where no current method sees well. The map is honest about being a map of vision. → the field, B1
4The story started before its famous beginning. The first confirmed planets date to 1992 — orbiting a dead star’s pulsar beam, three years before 51 Pegasi b made the field respectable. → the years, A1
A GRIDINT RESEARCH REPORT · SCIENCE · AUTHORED FROM OFFICIAL RECORDS · RENDERED BY THE GRIDINT BUILDER
published 2026-08-27 · data cutoff 2026-08-26 · edition 1 — updated only by a new dated edition

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