Last October (2010) I wrote a post on extrasolar planets. At that time almost 500 planets beyond our Solar System had been discovered. In the past year, 200 new planets have been confirmed, so I decided it's time to update the chart!
There are a number of recent discoveries around 10 Earth masses (0.03 Jupiter masses) and an over abundance of planets at 0.05 AU (7 million kilometres) from their parent Sun, the well-known 'hot Jupiters'. There is another class of cooler giant planets around 1-5 AU. Several 'super Earths' discovered by micro-lensing can also be seen on the chart.
Will there be 1000 known planets when I update the chart in autumn 2012? Let's see!
