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Most extrasolar planets (those outside our solar system) discovered to date have masses which are about the same or larger than the gas giants within the solar system.
Exceptions include three planets discovered orbiting a burned-out star, or supernova remnant, called a pulsar, comparable in size to the terrestrial planets; and a planet orbiting mu Arae with a mass of approximately 14 times that of the Earth [3].
It is far from clear if the newly discovered large planets would resemble gas giants in our solar system or if they are of an entirely different type or types which are unknown in our solar system. In particular, some of the newly discovered planets, known as hot Jupiters, orbit extremely close to their parent star, in nearly circular orbits. They therefore receive much more stellar radiation than the gas giants in our solar system, which makes it questionable whether they are the same type of planet at all.
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration of the United States has a program underway to develop a Terrestrial Planet Finder artificial satellite, which would be capable of detecting the planets with masses comparable to terrestrial planets. The frequency of occurrence of these planets is one of the variables in the Drake equation which estimates the number of intelligent, communicating civilizations that exist in our galaxy.
Interstellar planets are rogues in interstellar space, not gravitationally linked to any given solar system. No interstellar planet is known to date, but their existence is considered a plausible hypothesis on the grounds that the results of computer simulations of the origin and evolution of planetary systems often include the formation and subsequent ejection of bodies of significant mass.There is a minimum amount of wobble that current technology is able to detect. We can only detect extrasolar planets that are large enough and close enough to a star to wobble the star at least that much. As improved telescopes are built, it will become possible to detect currently hypothetical smaller and more distant planets. See extrasolar planet for details.
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