It's Official: NASA Confirms The Existence Of 5,000 Alien Planets Outside The Solar System

The discovery of two cosmic objects in January 1992, irreversibly altered our galaxy. We had definitive proof of extrasolar planets, or exoplanets, circling an alien star for the first time: two rocky worlds revolving around a star 2,300 light-years distant.

Now, a little over 30 years later, that figure has skyrocketed. This week celebrated the very momentous milestone of over 5,000 verified exoplanets on March 21. To be more specific, the NASA exoplanet library currently has 5,005 exoplanets, each with its own distinct properties.

Each of these exoplanets has been identified in peer-reviewed research and detected using a variety of detection techniques or methods of analysis. Follow-up research to learn more about these planets using new equipment, such as the newly launched James Webb Space Telescope and the future Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, is ripe for the plucking.

"It's not just a number," says astronomer Jessie Christiansen of the NASA Exoplanet Science Institute at Caltech. "Each one is a brand-new world, a brand-new planet. I get excited about every one because we don't know anything about them."

You can learn more about this in the video below:

 

Reference(s): NASA