We found the first confirmed planet outside our solar system in 1992. Since then, we've found almost 600. Why'd it take us so long to find exoplanets? And once we'd started, why'd we find so many? Caution: presentation contains gratuitous references to My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic. (To fully follow along with this presentation, please grab the presentation script from http://granades.com/2011/09/12/talking-science-at-dragoncon-2011/ ‎)

1. 1584 Photo of Giordano Bruno courtesy Berthold Werner

2. 1990 PSR B1257+12

3. SephirothLimit Break!

4. 1990 PSR B1257+12

5. 1992 Artist’s rendition courtesy R. Hurt/NASA

6. 1994 PSR B1620-26b Artist’s rendition of PSR B1620-26b courtesy Greg Bacon/NASA

7. 1995 51 Pegasi b

8. 573 total planets

9. Exoplanet Hunters Watching Stars Wobble and Dim Stephen Granade http://granades.com stephen@granades.com @sargent on Twitter

10. 1790 (“Uranus” like Goatse?)

11. Possibly a vampire 1841 1845

13. 1859

14. Stupid red matter

24. Picture courtesy Mysid

25. Picture courtesy Slack12

26. Spinning Pulsar is represented by Pinkie Pie

27. (not to scale)

28. GAMMA RADIATION

30. Sonic Rainboom is like Doppler Spectroscopy

35. Painting copyright Lynette Cook

36. Fluttershy is also afraid of her own shadow

37. 1999 HD 209458

38. 2002 OGLE-TR-56

40. You could see a Brundlefly

42. Figure courtesy S. Gaudi and D. Bennett

43. Close-up Rarity represents gravity lensing

44. OGLE Photo courtesy Krzysztof Ulaczyk

45. OGLE-2003-BLG-235L

49. Picture courtesy the ESO

50. 2M2107

51. 1RXS J160929.1−210524

54. Doppler Spectroscopy Pulsar Timing Transit Gravitational Lensing Direct Observation

55. Painting courtesy the ESO

56. Painting courtesy CNES/D. Ducros

57. Painting courtesy NASA/Wendy Stenzel

59. 1,235 candidates! Image courtesy NASA/Jason Rowe

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