Planet Formation and Exoplanets

The possibility of planets orbiting other stars has been a topic of fascination for centuries. We are the first generation that has brought these planets – now known as exoplanets – from the realm of science-fiction into that of science. An important milestone was the discovery of several planets orbiting a pulsar (Wolszczan & Frail, 1992), followed by the first planet orbiting a star more similar to our Sun (Mayor & Queloz, 1995), an achievement recently awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics. The 25 years since have been filled with an abundance of exciting discoveries and today we know over 5000 exoplanets.