an EGP in orbit. This may be a hint concerning the processes of giant planet formation, and is in keeping with the 3-5$\times$solar excesses measured in Jupiter and Saturn. The current census reveals that there is a $\sim$5% a priori chance of finding a giant planet by the Doppler technique around a nearby ( 50 parsecs $\equiv$ 160 light-years) star, but a $\sim$20% chance of finding one around a star with at least twice the Sun’s metallicity (J. Valenti & D.A. Fischer, in preparation).

Presumably, the inclinations of EGP orbits are distributed randomly on the sky. Hence, the probability that the orbit is edge-on ($i = 90^{\circ}$) is approximately /(2$a$), where  is the stellar radius. Given this, the close-in EGPs have the largest chance of transiting the stellar disk, during which time the star will dim by a fraction (/)$^2$, where  is the planet’s radius. Since (the radius of Jupiter, $\sim$$7.14\times 10^4$ kilometers) is roughly 10% of the radius of the Sun, this ratio is expected to be roughly 1%. A 1% dimming is easily detectable from the ground. At $a$=0.045 AU and a distance ($d$) of 47 parsecs, the planet around the F8V/G0V star HD209458 was the first of 