According to NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, there are more than 5,000 known planets beyond our solar system. According to the agency, this is a real milestone for astronomy and the search for extraterrestrial life. Among these exoplanets are rocky worlds the size of Earth and other gas giants larger than Jupiter.
“It’s not just a number. Each of them is a new world, a totally new planet. I’m excited about each one because we don’t know anything about them,” explains Jessie Christiansen, director of NASA’s Exoplanet Archive.
The Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite launched in 2018 and the James Webb Space Telescope, which was launched in December, could exploit scientists’ ability to find new exoplanets beyond our solar system. According to scientists, our galaxy may be home to billions of these celestial bodies.
Of the 5,000 planets that have been found so far, 35 percent are similar to Neptune, and they can be ice giants or much hotter. Meanwhile, about 31 percent are called Super Earths, ranging in size from our planet to Neptune. For their part, 30 percent are gas giants.
Scientists discovered the first exoplanets thanks to a method that involves tracking the motion of a star caused by the gravitational pull of orbiting planets. Then, they sent a space telescope whose mission was to observe more than 170,000 stars in search of falls of light that could indicate the passage of a planet, which is known as the transit method.
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