Where can I find data on real world extrasolar planets, to use as inspiration for my imaginary world?

Question

What are the best scientific resources and/or public databases to be taken into consideration when designing real alien worlds? So far, there are thousands of newly discovered alien worlds.

Let's say I wanted to illustrate a newly discovered exoplanet X within the solar system Y, so where can I get reliable scientific data such as the solar system's star type where the planet lies, the star's mass, spectra, magnitude as also a few things about the planet such as its size, radius, mass, orbital period etc.

Where can I access the most up to date scientific data which is also public available so that I could keep my digital illustrations in sync with that data?

Answer 1

A quick Google search for "list of exoplanets" yielded several useful resources.

• Wikipedia has multiple lists of planets including a list of nearest exoplanets, a list of multiplanetary extrasolar systems, a list of exoplanet extremes and a list of potentially habitable exoplanets, among many other exoplanet-related lists. These lists might provide good starting points for laypersons, but of course Wikipedia should never be considered a primary source.
• The Extrasolar Planets Encyclopaedia currently claims to list 3,412 planets in 2,554 systems. It gives data on both planets and their stars, in a somewhat technical format (so familiarity with astronomical and orbital mechanics jargon would be useful). See for example their entry for Kepler-1117 b or that for PSR 1257 12 b. It allows sorting on various criteria, including orbital period, planet mass and semi-major axis, where known.
• The Open Exoplanet Catalogue claims to be "a catalogue of all discovered extra-solar planets". It currently claims to list 3,308 confirmed exoplanets in 2,496 systems. Its format is likely to be at least somewhat accessible to people who are not professional astronomers; compare for example their entry on Kepler-1117 b or PSR 1257 12 b. The data is available as XML files on GitHub, allowing for easy local analysis; as an example, here's the file for the Kepler-1117 system.
• The Exoplanet Data Explorer currently claims to list 1,642 confirmed planets plus 3,786 unconfirmed candidates. They allow searching on a large number of criteria, or viewing the list in table form, and also to plot the data as graphs to visualize trends. The data pages are somewhat accessible; see for example their entry on Kepler-427 b.
• NASA has a list of Kepler mission discoveries. The table of data is relatively accessible but rather unwieldy, and they link to the scientific papers about the discovery on each planet's specific page (which don't seem to include much else). It's probably as close to a primary source as you can get, but obviously doesn't cover discoveries made by means other than the Kepler telescope.
• The NASA Exoplanet Archive currently claims to list 3,268 confirmed planets, 553 multi-planet systems and an additional 4,696 candidate planets. It can be browsed or searched, though the search feature appears to be very limited (allows searching only by name), and the data can be downloaded for local analysis. Like the Exoplanet Data Explorer, allows plotting the data in graphical form.