Once upon a time, an exoplanet was discovered

Michel Mayor was born in Lausanne in 1942. He turned to astronomy when he did his PhD at the Geneva Observatory, where he focused on elucidating the theoretical nature of the spiral arms of galaxies, which make it possible for stars and nebulae to pass through without permanently remaining inside the arms. Later on his interest shifted to solar-type stars, and in 1991 he published the result of 15 years of work on the statistics of such solar-type stars. In hindsight, this paper played a significant role in boosting, at a later time, his interest in brown dwarfs and planets. He feels that the search for exoplanets was a direct continuation of that work.

He then relates what drove the development of a spectrograph called ELODIE, designed to offer very high sensitivity in measuring the radial velocities of stars. ELODIE commenced operation in April 1994, and Mayor and his colleague Queloz discovered 51 Peg b in July 1995. As the first planet ever discovered around a normal star other than the Sun, it was a ground-breaking achievement. A few years later, Mayor contributed to designing and building another state-of-the-art spectrograph, called HARPS, that is now allowing astronomers to probe the universe further. Altogether about 300 new exoplanets have been discovered by Mayor and his co-workers since 51 Peg b.