Galaxies far, far away are no longer exclusive to science fiction movies. The idea has become reality -- and it began here at SF State.

"Planets are the only place we know where life is formed," said SF State adjunct professor of astronomy Chris McCarthy. "We don't know if that's happened on another planet so we look for others that exist."

Since 1995, originally led by Prof. Jeff Marcy, SF State's astronomy team has discovered over 200 exoplanets, which are planets that orbit other stars outside of our solar system.

Prior to their discoveries, scientists assumed there were exoplanets but never had solid evidence. The University's research team beat all others and found the first exoplanet. Since then, all other schools have been working to catch up.

In a very condensed explanation, as a planet orbits a star, the planet causes the star to wobble. That wobble can be detected in light. When the star wobbles towards Earth (or in the direction of the telescope) it gets bluer and as the star wobbles away, it gets redder, explains Joseph Barranco, theorist and assistant professor at the department of physics and astronomy.

Currently, researchers can only find close planets because the further away wobbles are, the longer it takes to find them. Researchers have to detect the same wobble for many years before they can infer that it is a planet.

The telescopes used to locate these exoplanets are the Keck Telescope located on Mauna Kea in Hawaii, one at the Lick Observatory near Santa Cruz (where most of the exoplanets are found) and one in Chile.

"It's San Francisco. The weather sucks," Barranco said. "It's too bright so you can't look at stars here."

The telescopes are controlled by computers, allowing SF State to do research without physically being at the site.

When Adjunct Prof. Debra Fischer took over in 2008, the university participated in the Space Interferometry Mission. Designed to let several teams of scientists come up with their own way to hunt for Earth-sized planets orbiting stars other than the sun, SF State came in first place, ahead of Berkeley, Harvard and Princeton.

"Scientists test theories to understand where planets are from," McCarthy said. "We can test those theories by observing our solar systems and others."

The study of exoplanets is headed towards programs like the Keppler Mission. Launched by NASA, it is designed to find planets the size of the Earth, which are more likely to have life.

"It's really taking off. It's a very exciting field," McCarthy said. "Everyone's getting in on it now; it wasn't popular before."

McCarthy worked under Fischer as a graduate student before he became an adjunct assistant professor of astronomy at SF State.

"Planets seem to be kind of bizarre. Our notion of what planets are like is very limited," McCarthy said."You can have planets in strange orbits. Planets as big as Jupiter are going around their sun in only three days."

Thanks to a recent donation, the astronomy department will team up with UC Berkeley to refurbish a telescope in Berkeley's Lick Observatory. The controls will be at SF State so students can use the computer to take pictures without actually being at the telescope.

"I came to SF State as a graduate student because of the research they're doing. I find it very exciting because I'm a science fiction nerd," said graduate student Chris Johnson [AGE]. "It's certainly one of the better institutions for finding planets outside our solar systems."

"When I first bring it up [exoplanets], it usually piques peoples' interest in astronomy," Johnson said. "It piques the interest of not-science-based people. They go online and look stuff up after."

At SF State, a few graduate students are still working with Fischer, even though she has taken a position at Yale University this year. Fischer could not be reached for comment.

For more information on SF State's research with exoplanets, visit http://tauceti.sfsu.edu.