NASA Confirms There Are , Over 5,000 Planets, Outside Our Solar System.
CNN reports that on March 21, 65 exoplanets were added to the NASA Exoplanet Archive, pushing the count over the 5,000 mark.
Jessie Christiansen, science lead for the archive and a research scientist with the NASA Exoplanet Science Institute at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, said, "it's not just a number.".
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, science lead for the archive and a research scientist with the NASA Exoplanet Science Institute at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, via statement.
CNN reports the exoplanets are vastly different than planets in our solar system.
Of the exoplanets that have currently been found, only 4% appear to be terrestrial like Earth or Mars.
30% are gas giants, 31% are super-Earths,
and 35% are similar to Neptune.
30% are gas giants, 31% are super-Earths,
and 35% are similar to Neptune.
30% are gas giants, 31% are super-Earths,
and 35% are similar to Neptune.
CNN reports that in the early 2000s, when Christiansen was a graduate student, there were only about 100 documented exoplanets.
Now, exoplanets are almost ordinary. My colleague David Ciardi (chief scientist for the NASA Exoplanet Archive) pointed out the other day that half of the people alive have never lived in a world where we didn't know about exoplanets, Jessie Christiansen, science lead for the archive and a research scientist with the NASA Exoplanet Science Institute at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, via statement.
About two-thirds of the 5,000 exoplanets were discovered with the help of the Kepler Space Telescope.
Of the 5,000 exoplanets known,
4,900 are located within a few thousand light-years of us. And think about the fact that we're 30,000 light-years from the
center of the galaxy; , Jessie Christiansen, science lead for the archive and a research scientist with the NASA Exoplanet Science Institute at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, via statement.
Of the 5,000 exoplanets known,
4,900 are located within a few thousand light-years of us. And think about the fact that we're 30,000 light-years from the
center of the galaxy; , Jessie Christiansen, science lead for the archive and a research scientist with the NASA Exoplanet Science Institute at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, via statement.
... if you extrapolate from the little bubble around us, that means there are many more planets in our galaxy we haven't found yet, as many as 100 to 200 billion. It's mind-blowing, Jessie Christiansen, science lead for the archive and a research scientist with the NASA Exoplanet Science Institute at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, via statement