Exoplanets. Credit NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center
NASA has confirmed the discovery of 6000 exoplanets, worlds orbiting stars beyond our Solar System. They come in all kinds of sizes and types, circling different kinds of nearby stars.
The search began in 1992, when astronomers found two planets orbiting a pulsar. Since then, missions like Kepler and TESS have steadily added to the tally. By 2015, Kepler had found 1,000 exoplanets. Just a year later, 1,500 more were confirmed. In 2022, the total reached 5,000. Now, it’s 6,000.
That may sound like a lot, but compared to the hundreds of billions of planets that could exist in the Milky Way, it’s just a tiny fraction. Still, it’s a milestone worth celebrating.
Finding exoplanets is no easy task. They’re far away, often lost in the glare of their stars, or so distant from them that they’re nearly invisible. Yet, thanks to new technology, we’re getting better at spotting them — and many more discoveries are surely on the way.
source NASA
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