Typically, two most important strategies govern the seek for exoplanets, whether or not they’re sci-fi staples like Spock’s or one thing much less thrilling: the transit technique and the radial velocity technique.
The previous is chargeable for the lion’s share of detections and contains anticipating tiny dips in starlight as a planet crosses its star face—that’s, the sphere, corresponding to a possible planet Vulcan, is implied by its influence on starlight in transit.
The radial velocity technique, nonetheless, searches for refined shifts in starlight, measuring the “wobbles” within the Solar ensuing from the gravitational pull of an orbiting planet.
This latter technique, nonetheless minimally drawn on, is of notable significance for programs wherein planets fail to span their stars’ faces, not less than from our perspective on Earth.