The Earthbound Planet Search

Finding planets orbiting nearby stars has been a holy grail in astronomy for more than 400 years. We began working on this problem 30 years ago, at a time when there were no known extrasolar planets. In late 1995 we began routinely finding planets around the nearest stars. Since then we have found several hundred planets, including the first sub-saturn mass planet, the first neptune mass planet, the first terrestrial mass planet, the first multiple planet system, and the first transiting planet.

探寻环绕邻近恒星运行的行星，在超过四百年的天文学历史中，一直被视为至高无上的圣杯。自三十年前开始着手研究这一问题以来，当时尚无已知的系外行星。1995年年末，我们开始常规性地发现环绕最近恒星的行星。自那时起，我们已经发现了数百颗行星，包括首颗类似土星的行星、首颗类似海王星的行星、首颗类似地球质量的行星、首个多行星系统以及首颗经过凌星的行星。