The Extrasolar Planets Encyclopaedia (also known as Encyclopaedia of exoplanetary systems and Catalogue of Exoplanets) is an

astronomy Astronomy is a natural science that studies celestial objects and the phenomena that occur in the cosmos. It uses mathematics, physics, and chemistry in order to explain their origin and their overall evolution. Objects of interest includ ...

website A website (also written as a web site) is any web page whose content is identified by a common domain name and is published on at least one web server. Websites are typically dedicated to a particular topic or purpose, such as news, educatio ...

, founded in

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, largest city of France. With an estimated population of 2,048,472 residents in January 2025 in an area of more than , Paris is the List of ci ...

France France, officially the French Republic, is a country located primarily in Western Europe. Overseas France, Its overseas regions and territories include French Guiana in South America, Saint Pierre and Miquelon in the Atlantic Ocean#North Atlan ...

at the

Meudon Observatory The Paris Observatory (, ), a research institution of the Paris Sciences et Lettres University, is the foremost astronomy, astronomical observatory of France, and one of the largest astronomical centres in the world. Its historic building is on t ...

by Jean Schneider in February 1995, which maintains a database of all the currently known and candidate extrasolar planets, with individual pages for each planet and a full list interactive catalog spreadsheet. The main catalogue comprises databases of all of the currently confirmed extrasolar planets as well as a database of unconfirmed planet detections. The databases are frequently updated with new data from peer-reviewed publications and conferences. In their respective pages, the

planet A planet is a large, Hydrostatic equilibrium, rounded Astronomical object, astronomical body that is generally required to be in orbit around a star, stellar remnant, or brown dwarf, and is not one itself. The Solar System has eight planets b ...

s are listed along with their basic properties, including the year of planet's discovery,

mass Mass is an Intrinsic and extrinsic properties, intrinsic property of a physical body, body. It was traditionally believed to be related to the physical quantity, quantity of matter in a body, until the discovery of the atom and particle physi ...

radius In classical geometry, a radius (: radii or radiuses) of a circle or sphere is any of the line segments from its Centre (geometry), center to its perimeter, and in more modern usage, it is also their length. The radius of a regular polygon is th ...

, orbital period, semi-major axis, eccentricity, inclination, longitude of periastron, time of

periastron An apsis (; ) is the farthest or nearest point in the orbit of a planetary-mass object, planetary body about its primary body. The line of apsides (also called apse line, or major axis of the orbit) is the line connecting the two maximum a ...

, maximum time variation, and time of transit, including all error range values. The individual planet data pages also contain the data on the parent star, including name, distance in

parsec The parsec (symbol: pc) is a unit of length used to measure the large distances to astronomical objects outside the Solar System, approximately equal to or (AU), i.e. . The parsec unit is obtained by the use of parallax and trigonometry, and ...

s, spectral type,

effective temperature The effective temperature of a body such as a star or planet is the temperature of a black body that would emit the same total amount of electromagnetic radiation. Effective temperature is often used as an estimate of a body's surface temperature ...

apparent magnitude Apparent magnitude () is a measure of the Irradiance, brightness of a star, astronomical object or other celestial objects like artificial satellites. Its value depends on its intrinsic luminosity, its distance, and any extinction (astronomy), ...

, age, and celestial coordinates (

Right Ascension Right ascension (abbreviated RA; symbol ) is the angular distance of a particular point measured eastward along the celestial equator from the Sun at the equinox (celestial coordinates), March equinox to the (hour circle of the) point in questio ...

and

Declination In astronomy, declination (abbreviated dec; symbol ''δ'') is one of the two angles that locate a point on the celestial sphere in the equatorial coordinate system, the other being hour angle. The declination angle is measured north (positive) or ...

). Even when they are known, not all of these figures are listed in the interactive spreadsheet catalog, and many missing planet figures that would simply require the application of Kepler's third law of motion are left blank. Most notably absent on all pages is a star's

luminosity Luminosity is an absolute measure of radiated electromagnetic radiation, electromagnetic energy per unit time, and is synonymous with the radiant power emitted by a light-emitting object. In astronomy, luminosity is the total amount of electroma ...

. As of June 2011, the catalog includes objects up to 25 Jupiter masses, an increase on the previous inclusion criteria of 20 Jupiter masses. As of 2016 this limit was increased to 60 Jupiter masses based on a study of mass–density relationships.

References

External links

* {{Exoplanet Astronomy websites Exoplanet catalogues Astronomical databases 20th-century encyclopedias French online encyclopedias Paris Observatory Creative Commons-licensed websites Creative Commons-licensed databases

See also

References

External links