Fly through the solar system, Milky Way, and beyond as you explore cosmic mysteries, see how objects interact in space, and hear about missions that are helping us understand the universe today. The most successful planet-hunting technique to date has been radial velocity, also called the Doppler wobble, with more than 400 newfound planets to its credit. Astronomers using this method look for a star's “wobble”—telltale shifts in a star's light spectrum—caused by the gravitational tugs of orbiting planets. The more massive a planet and the tighter its orbit, the greater its effect on the host star. As a result, the majority of discoveries made with this method have been so-called hot Jupiters, because of their large masses and close proximities to their parent stars.
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