How to read it
Each selected year has three stacked editorial counts: transit, radial velocity and other. These are discrete teaching snapshots, not annual observations between the shown years.
Data Lab
Exoplanet Discovery Timeline
How can a simplified table illustrate shifts among detection methods without standing in for the discovery archive?
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CSV schema
year; the three method-count columns; and an optional milestone note. The chart reads the count columns directly. Milestones are prompts for research, not proof of causation.
Limits
The values are simplified teaching numbers and are not an export from the NASA archive. Confirmation, discovery, publication and ingestion dates differ; systems can have multiple planets and methods. Use an archive query with a recorded retrieval date for factual counts.
Try it yourself
Lab task
Choose one apparent change, frame it as a hypothesis, then describe the archive fields and date rule you would need to test it with real records.
Signal interpretation console · data labs
Exoplanet Discovery Timeline / observation pipeline
Photons
Identify wavelength, exposure, field of view and observing date before reading the image.
Detector
Separate object signal from point-spread function, noise, saturation and selection.
Calibration
Track background removal, alignment, scaling and color mapping as part of the measurement.
Physical claim
Connect “The Exoplanet Revolution” to “Detection Methods” through an explicit model.
PRIMARY READOUT
Track the remarkable growth in exoplanet discoveries from the first detection in 1995 to over 5,000 confirmed worlds today.
MODEL WARNING
A transit spectrum is a small wavelength-dependent change in combined light; stellar activity, clouds and instrument systematics can mimic atmospheric features. Projection, distance, extinction or adopted parameters may offer another explanation.
CROSS-CHECK
Query NASA Exoplanet Archive and seek an independent wavelength, spectrum, motion or catalogue measurement.