Thread: 498 known planets?

I saw on the Exoplanet iPhone app that there are 490 known exoplanets. Add the 8 in our solar system makes 498, so that means that the planet afte the next will be number 500 right?

Yes, the current number of exoplanet candidates is 490. See: http://exoplanet.eu/

Just remember that most of them are not yet confirmed, because the radial velocity method can only determine a lower limit for the companion mass. They must be confirmed by other methods.

It does seem as though planets are normal for a dwarf star, and maybe larger stars too. Something similar to the Kuiper Belt and Oort Cloud too I would imagine.