The milestone comes 30 years after the first exoplanet was , in 1995. (Prior to that, a had been identified around stars that had burned all their fuel and collapsed.) Although researchers think there are in the Milky Way galaxy, finding them remains a challenge. In addition to discovering many individual planets with fascinating characteristics as the of known exoplanets climbs, scientists are able to see how the general planet population compares to the planets of our own solar system.
For example, while our solar system hosts an equal number of rocky and giant planets, rocky planets appear to be more common in the universe. Researchers have also found a range of planets entirely different from those in our solar system. There are Jupiter-size planets that than Mercury orbits the Sun; planets that , , and ; planets ; some with the ; and others with clouds .
“Each of the different types of planets we discover gives us information about the conditions under which planets can form and, ultimately, how common planets like Earth might be, and where we should be looking for them,” said Dawn Gelino, head of NASA’s Exoplanet Exploration Program (ExEP), located at the agency’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California. “If we want to find out if we’re alone in the universe, all of this knowledge is essential.”
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Searching for other worlds
Fewer than 100 exoplanets have been , because most planets are so faint they get lost in the light from their parent star. The other four are indirect. With the transit method, for instance, astronomers look for a star to dim for a short period as an orbiting planet passes in front of it.
To account for the possibility that something other than an exoplanet is responsible for a particular signal, most exoplanet candidates must be confirmed by follow-up observations, often using an additional telescope, and that takes time. That’s why there is a long list of candidates in the (hosted by NExScI) waiting to be confirmed.
“We really need the whole community working together if we want to maximize our investments in these missions that are churning out exoplanets candidates,” said Aurora Kesseli, the deputy science lead for the NASA Exoplanet Archive at IPAC. “A big part of what we do at NExScI is that help the community go out and turn candidate planets into confirmed planets.”
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The rate of exoplanet discoveries has accelerated in recent years (the database reached just three years ago), and this trend seems likely to continue. Kesseli and her colleagues anticipate receiving thousands of additional exoplanet candidates from the ESA (European Space Agency) Gaia mission, which finds planets through a technique called , and NASA’s upcoming , which will discover thousands of new exoplanets primarily through a technique called .
Feed By Today and Features – NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory
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