---
title: "First Visible Light Detected Directly From an Exoplanet"
description: "The first-ever direct detection of the spectrum of visible light reflected from an exoplanet has been made by an international team of astronomers."
date: "2015-04-26"
modified: "2015-08-13"
authors:
  - name: "Matthew Lincoln"
    link: "https://futurism.com/authors/justmatt"
url: "https://futurism.com/first-visible-light-detected-directly-from-an-exoplanet"
categories:
  - "Astronomy"
  - "Exoplanets"
  - "Space"
tags:
  - "space"
---

# First Visible Light Detected Directly From an Exoplanet

![](<https://futurism.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/Space.jpg>)

- Using the HARPS instrument in Chile, the astronomers studied light from 51 Pegasi b – the first exoplanet discovered orbiting a Sun-like star.
- Their observations not only uncovered new properties of this well-known object, but the work is also a successful proof-of-concept demonstration of an new technique for exoplanet detection.
- Currently, the two most common methods of detecting exoplanets involve observing a star's radial velocity to see if it "wobbles" from the pull of an exoplanet, or looking for a tiny dip in the intensity of a star as the companion exoplanet transits across its face.