image credit

an extrasolar planet is a planet that exists beyond
our solar system

to date, 277 such planets have been found; and
the rate of their discovery is increasing, with 61
found in 2007 alone

however, back in 1995, astronomers like Geoffrey
Marcy were having no luck finding planets that
orbited distant stars

and it seemed as though extrasolar planets were
either extremely rare, near-impossible to detect
or even nonexistent

but then on October 6, 1995, Swiss astronmers
Michel Mayor and Didier Queloz published a paper
in Nature announcing the discovery of a Jupiter-
sized planet orbiting a sun-like star, 51 Pegasi

within a week, the discovering was independently
confirmed Marcy and his team

the planet is called 51 Pegasi b and its parent star,
51 Pegasi

the star, located in the constellation Pegasus, can
be seen with the naked eye, though it is some
300 trillion miles from Earth

the planet, 51 Pegasi b, is unlike any in our solar
system in that it is Jupiter-like in size and compos-
ition, and yet it orbits extremely close to its parent
star with unheard of speed

the video below, an excerpt from a National Geo-
graphic documentary, provides greater detail on the
star, the planet, the astronomers and the discovery