Exoplanet Statistics, Trends, and Correlations

Below are links to some histograms and scatter diagrams that show the properties of some of the key parameters for the confirmed exoplanets. Since the number of confirmed exoplanets changes rapidly, sometimes daily, the plots will obviously not necessarily be up to date. The date on which each plot was made (and the number of confirmed exoplanets at the time) is given for each diagram. There are several ways you can make histograms and scatter diagrams yourself that will be up to date on the day that you make them. For example, the Extrasolar Planets Encyclopedia and the Exoplanets iPhone App both allow you to make plots of exoplanet parameters on the fly. However, there is one thing that you need to watch out for. That is, not all parameters have been measurements for exoplanet. Therefore, if you want to plot radius versus mass, for example, you have to filter the data to select only those exoplanets for which both measurements exist. You have to especially careful when the orbital eccentricity parameter is involved because, depending on what software you are using, a blank entry in a data column may be misinterpreted as a zero measured or estimated value. This is not such a problem for the other parameters for which a zero value is obviously invalid (for example, radius and mass, but not orbitial inclination angle). All of these things have been carefully taken into account in the plots below.

Learn more about exoplanets with the book Exoplanets and Alien Solar Systems.

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File under: Statistical and collective properties of confirmed exoplanets. Trends and correlations in the data, and their implications.