Aspects of this topic are discussed in the following places at Britannica.
For objects beyond the immediate neighbourhood of the Sun, only radial velocities can be measured. Initially it is necessary to choose a standard of rest (the reference frame) from which the solar motion is to be calculated. This is usually done by selecting a particular kind of star or a portion of space. To solve for solar motion, two assumptions are made. The first is that the stars that...
...much fainter than the stars they orbit, extrasolar planets are extremely difficult to detect directly. By far the most successful technique for finding and studying extrasolar planets has been the radial velocity method, which measures the motion of host stars in response to gravitational tugs by their planets. The first planet discovered with this technique was 51 Pegasi b in 1995. Radial...
Radial velocities, measured along the line of sight spectroscopically using the Doppler effect, are not known for all of the recognized stars near the Sun. Of the 45 systems within 17 light-years, only 40 have well-determined radial velocities. The radial velocities of the rest are not known, either because of faintness or because of problems resulting from the nature of their spectrum. For...
The motion along the line of sight (i.e., toward the observer), called radial velocity, is obtained directly from spectroscopic observations. If λ is the wavelength of a characteristic spectral line of some atom or ion present in the star, and λL the wavelength of the same line measured in the laboratory, then the difference Δλ, or λ −...
astronomer known particularly for his spectrographic determinations of the radial velocities of stars—i.e., their motions toward the Earth or away from it. In addition, he discovered many spectroscopic binary stars, and in 1924 he published a catalog listing more than 1,000 of them.
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