NASA Has Found 5,000 Exoplanets Beyond Our Solar System: Future Homes For Humans?
NASA has now confirmed the existence of at least 5,000 planets beyond our solar system. The announcement was made on Monday after NASA added 65 exoplanets to its Exoplanet Archive.
The archive in question hosts the details of all exoplanet discoveries from peer-reviewed scientific papers, regardless of the method used to detect these planets.
"Each one of them is a new world, a brand-new planet. I get excited about every one because we don't know anything about them," Jessie Christiansen from the NASA Exoplanet Science Institute said in a statement.
Discovering exoplanets: A never-ending hunt
Planets that orbit stars other than our Sun are called exoplanets. In essence, every planet outside of our solar system is an exoplanet, with the first one being discovered in the 1990s. Over the last few years, with better understanding of techniques and assistance from AI, scientists have been able to find super-Earths, mini-Neptunes, and so on.?
Also read:?Researchers Find New Form Of Ice: It Will Help Us Better Understand Exoplanets
Most discoveries were made using the Spitzer Space Telescope, the Kepler Space Telescope, and the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite.?From the confirmed exoplanets, 30% are gas giants, 31% are super-Earths, and 35% are Neptune-like. Only 4% of these 5,000 exoplanets are rocky planets like Earth or Mars.
The newly-launched James Webb Telescope might be able to offer additional insight into exoplanets by peeking into their atmospheres. Both NASA and ESA are launching various missions in the second half of this decade to study atmosphere of exoplanets.
Also read:?It Rains Precious Gems From Clouds Of Metal On This Planet Outside Our Solar System
Let's be clear! 5,000 exoplanets are barely the tip of this cosmic iceberg. Scientists believe that there are hundreds of billions of exoplanets just in the Milky Way galaxy.?Christiansen said that as many as 100 to 200 billion planets could be spread across the Milky Way.
What do you think - perhaps we will find a new Earth? Let us know in the comments below.?For more in the world of?technology?and?science, keep reading?Indiatimes.com.
References
Strickland, A. C. (2022b, March 22). There are more than 5,000 worlds beyond our solar system, NASA confirms. CNN.?
