The gravity of a planet, however weak it might be, is enough to pull its parent star just a little bit out of place as the planet orbits.
While the radial velocity method studies a star’s spectrum to measure the star’s “wobble” toward and away from Earth, there is another trick to measure this tell-tale motion: simply look for the star to move back and forth in the sky.
With exceptionally sharp vision, a telescope can actually see a star move relative to other stars. Astrometry is the science of precisely measuring the position of objects in the sky. If astronomers use this method to monitor a star and see that it sways with a periodic rhythm, like slow dancers at a prom, they can tell that an unseen companion — perhaps a planet — is orbiting the star and pulling it to and fro.