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The milestone highlights the rate of acceleration of discoveries, just over three decades since the first exoplanets were found.
The official number of exoplanets – planets outside our solar system – followed by NASA reached 6,000. Confirmed planets are added to the number of bearings by scientists from around the world, so no single planet is considered the 6,000th entry. The number is monitored by the Exoplanet Science Institute (Nexsci) of NASA, based at the IPAC of Caltech in Pasadena, California. There are more than 8,000 additional candidate planets awaiting confirmation, NASA leading the world in the search for life in the universe.
“This step represents decades of cosmic exploration motivated by the space telescopes of NASA – an exploration which has completely changed the way in which humanity considers the night sky,” said Shawn Domal -Goldman, interim director, astrophysical division, NASA seat in Washington. “Step by step, from discovery to characterization, NASA’s missions built the foundation to answer a fundamental question: are we alone? Now, with our next Roman space telescope of Nancy Grace and living worlds, America will direct the next giant jump – studying worlds like ours around the stars like our sun. This is American ingenuity, and a promise of discovery that unites us all. ”
The milestone comes 30 years after the discovery of the first exoplanet around a star similar to our sun in 1995. (Before that, some planets had been identified around stars that had burned all their fuel and collapsed.) Although the researchers think that there are billions of planets in the galaxy in the milky way, finding them a challenge. In addition to discovering many individual planets with fascinating characteristics, because the total number of known exoplanets climbs, scientists are able to see how the population of the general planet compares to the planets of our own solar system.
For example, while our solar system hosts an equal number of rocky and giant planets, the rocky planets seem to be more common in the universe. The researchers also found a range of planets entirely different from those of our solar system. There are planets the size of the size of the size of the size of the size of the size closer to their parent star than mercury orbit the sun; planets that orbit two stars, no stars and dead stars; planets covered with lava; Some with the density of polystyrene; and others with valuable stones clouds.
“Each of the different types of planets that we discover gives us information on the conditions under which the planets can form and, ultimately, how common planets could be and where we should look for them,” said Dawn Gelino, head of the agency’s propulsion exploration program in southern California. “If we want to know if we are alone in the universe, all this knowledge is essential.”
Less than 100 exoplanets have been directly imagined, because most of the planets are so weak that they get lost in the light of their parent star. The other four planet detection methods are indirect. With the transit method, for example, astronomers are looking for a star to decrease for a short period because an orbit planet passes in front of it.
To take into account 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 this takes time. This is why there is a long list of candidates in the NASA Exoplanet archive (hosted by Nexsci) waiting to be confirmed.
“We really need the whole community by working together if we want to maximize our investments in these missions that produce exoplanet candidates,” said Aurora Kesseli, the head of assistant science for the NASA exoplanet archives at IPAC. “A large part of what we do at Nexsci is the construction of tools that help the community to get out and transform candidate planets into confirmed planets.”
The exoplanet discovery rate has accelerated in recent years (the database has reached 5,000 exoplanets confirmed only three years ago), and this trend seems to continue. Kesseli and his colleagues plan to receive thousands of additional exoplanet candidates from the GAIA mission of ESA (European Space Agency), which finds planets through a technique called astrometry, and the next Nancy Grace Space Telescope, which will discover thousands of new exoplanets, mainly through a technique called gravitational microlening.
At NASA, the future of the science of exoplanets will emphasize the search for rocky planets similar to the earth and the study of their atmospheres for biosignatures – any characteristic, element, molecule, substance or characteristic which can be used as proof of past or present life. NASA James Webb space telescope has already analyzed chemistry of more than 100 exoplanet atmospheres.
But studying the atmospheres of the planets, the size and temperature of the earth will require new technologies. More specifically, scientists need better tools to block the dazzling of the star in Planet Orbits. And in the case of a planet in the shape of a earth, the radiance would be significant: the sun is about 10 billion times more brilliant than the earth – which would be more than sufficient to drown the light of our native planet if it was seen by a distant observer.
NASA has two main initiatives to try to overcome this obstacle. The Roman telescope will carry a technological demonstration instrument called the Roman coronagraphe which will test the new technologies to block the light of the stars and make the planets weak visible. At its peak performance, the coronagrapist should be able to directly imagine a planet of the size and temperature of Jupiter in orbit around a star like our sun, and at a similar distance from this star. With its microlensage survey and its coronagraphic observations, Roman will reveal new details on the diversity of planetary systems, showing how common solar systems are like ours can be through the galaxy.
Additional progress in Coronagrapher technology will be necessary to build a coronagraphe that can detect a planet like Earth. NASA works on a concept for such a mission, currently appointed the observatory of habitable worlds.
NASA’s exoplanet exploration program is responsible for implementing the agency’s plans for the discovery and understanding of planetary systems around neighboring stars. It acts as a focal point for exoplanets science and technology and incorporates cohesive strategies for future discoveries. The Center for Scientific Operations and Analysis for EXEP is Nexsci, based at IPAC, a scientific and data center for astrophysics and planetary science in Caltech. JPL is managed by Caltech for NASA.
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Calla Cofield
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California.
626-808-2469
calla.e.cofield@jpl.nasa.gov
2025-119
