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▲ There are more than 5,000 other worlds beyond the solar system, NASA announced. On the 21st (local time), NASA added 65 new exoplanets to the NASA Exoplanet Archive.
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There are more than 5,000 other worlds beyond our solar system, NASA announced. On the 21st (local time), NASA added 65 new exoplanets to the NASA Exoplanet Archive. NASA’s archives of newly discovered exoplanets published in peer-reviewed scientific papers.
With this, the number of exoplanets confirmed by humans has increased to 5005. It has been 30 years since the first exoplanet was discovered in 1992. There are 8,709 exoplanet candidates. “It’s not just a number,” said Jesse Christianson, director of science for the archives run by the California Institute of Technology. Each is a new planet, a new world. “It’s even more interesting that we don’t know anything about exoplanets.”
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▲ Of the exoplanets registered in the NASA Exoplanet Archive so far, 30% are gas planets, 31% are super-Earths, and 35% are icy planets. Only the remaining 4% are rocky planets similar to or slightly smaller than Earth.
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▲ The number of exoplanets discovered by humans has increased to 5005. It has been 30 years since the first exoplanet was discovered in 1992.
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The 65 newly added exoplanets to the NASA archives are mostly super-Earth, ‘hot Jupiter’ planets, and quasi-Neptune planets. SuperEarths are larger than Earth’s and possibly habitable rocky planets, while hot Jupiter planets are gaseous planets like Jupiter. A quasi-Neptune planet is a smaller ice planet than Neptune. There are also two rocky planets similar in size to Earth, but their surface temperature reaches 327 degrees Celsius. “It’s not a habitable planet,” Christianson said. It is more like a hot rock,” he explained.
Humans first discovered exoplanets in the constellation Virgo in 1992. By measuring the change in electromagnetic waves emitted by a pulsar (a neutron star rotating at high speed), two planets in orbit were identified. Until 2000, only 100 exoplanets were discovered by humans. However, with the development of satellite telescopes called ‘planet hunters’ such as Hubble, Spitzer, Kepler, and Tess, the number has increased to thousands. In particular, the Kepler Space Telescope, which was retired in 2018, discovered 2,662 exoplanets in the nine years since launch.
“In the early 2000s, when I was a graduate student, there were only about 100 exoplanets discovered by mankind,” Christianson said. But now exoplanets are very common.” “There will be hundreds of billions of planets in our galaxy alone,” he said. “Of the 5000 known exoplanets, 4900 are within a few thousand light years of Earth.” “Given that our solar system is 30,000 light-years away from the center of our galaxy, there are probably 100 to 200 billion more undiscovered planets in our galaxy,” he said.
Of the exoplanets registered in the NASA Exoplanet Archive to date, 30% are gas planets, 31% are super-Earths, and 35% are icy planets. Only the remaining 4% are rocky planets similar to or slightly smaller than Earth. As NASA launched the exoplanet exploration satellite TES as the successor of Kepler in 2018, it is expected that more exoplanets will be discovered in the future. In particular, the largest and most powerful James Webb Space Telescope in human history is expected to play an active role. In 2027, NASA plans to launch the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, and in 2029, the European Space Agency plans to launch the Ariel Space Telescope.
By Kwon Yoon-hee, staff reporter [email protected]
