It was a record year for exoplanet discoveries. 2015, you have a lot to live up to.

In 2014 astronomers discovered over 800 new planets outside of the solar system.

ESO/M. Kornmesser / Via eso.org

The exact number varies depending on which catalogue you consult. NASA's Exoplanet Archive puts the number at 860, whereas the long-running Extrasolar Planets Encyclopaedia puts it at 803. That's because each database uses slightly different criteria.

Either way, that's a lot of new planets.

Most of those came from a single announcement in February when NASA's Kepler mission confirmed the existence of a massive 715 exoplanets.

Planets found by Kepler are shown in red, those found by other missions are blue, and the gold bar shows the February haul.

NASA/SETI/J Rowe

In 2013 Kepler suffered a setback when one of the wheels that kept it in the right alignment failed. This year's huge Kepler haul came from previously collected data.

Astronomers couldn't do anything to fix the wheel, but they did manage to find another way to use the spacecraft, starting in June this year. And it's working – one planet has already been found this way.

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