The 2010s: Decade of the exoplanet

In addition to being famous for having taught your author his "intro to physics" course, Szentgyorgyi was working on a similar instrument when the first exoplanet was discovered.The Nobel-winning discovery of 51 Pegasi b came via the "radial velocity" method, which relies on the fact that a planet exerts a gravitational influence on its host star, causing the star to accelerate slightly toward the planet. This doesn't require the specialized equipment needed for radial velocity detections, but it does require a telescope that can detect small brightness differences despite the flicker caused by the light passing through our atmosphere.By 2009, transit detections were adding regularly to the growing list of exoplanets.In the first year it was launched, Kepler started finding new planets. Radial velocity measurements only tell you how much the star is moving, but that motion could be caused by a relatively small planet with an orbital plane aligned with the line of sight from Earth.