NASA Confirms 5,000 Planets Exist Beyond Our Solar System, Each One A New World
While the question of whether or not we are alone in the universe may still be unanswered, the fact that there are many other planets out there is not. NASA confirmed yesterday that the growing number of exoplanets, planets outside our immediate solar system, has grown to over 5,000. The 5,000-plus planets include small, rocky planets like Earth, gas giants that are many times larger than Jupiter, and others that orbit super close around their own stars.
"It's not just a number," exclaimed Jessie Christiansen, Science Leader for the Archive and a research scientist with the NASA Exoplanet Science Institute at Caltech in Pasadena. "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."
Alexander Wolszczan, lead author on the paper 30 years ago, said that finding these three planets essentially opened the floodgates. "If you can find planets around a neutron star, planets have to be basically everywhere," stated Wolszczan. "The planet production process has to be very robust."
Those floodgates are expected to get inundated with even more discoveries in the near future. The Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS), which launched in 2018, is continuing to make discoveries. However, more powerful next-generation telescopes with extremely sensitive instruments are about to be added to the hunt. The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), will soon be capturing light from the atmospheres of exoplanets, and hopefully giving more insight as to whether or not those planets have habitable conditions. As Wolszczan says, we are opening an era of discovery that will go far beyond solely adding new planets to a list.
"To my thinking, it is inevitable that we'll find some kind of life somewhere, most likely of some primitive kind," Wolszczan said. With all the technology that is being launched into space to explore and unveil the mysteries of the universe, it is hard to imagine not finding signs of life if they do exist. It is an exciting time to be living in indeed.
Top Image Courtesy of NASA/JPL