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NASA Confirms Over 6,000 Exoplanets, Marking a Milestone in Planet Hunting

NASA has officially confirmed the existence of 6,007 planets outside of our solar system, a notable milestone in the ongoing search for worlds beyond our own. This number, as of a recent update to the NASA exoplanet database, demonstrates the rapidly accelerating pace of exoplanet revelation.

The first exoplanet, 51 Pegasi b, was discovered in 1995, opening a new frontier in astronomical research. As then, the rate of discovery has steadily increased, with over 1,000 new worlds identified in the last three years alone – following the surpassing of the 5,000 confirmed exoplanet mark in early 2022. Currently, NASA also lists over 8,000 additional candidates awaiting scientific confirmation.

The Kepler Space Telescope has been instrumental in this progress, accounting for nearly half of all known exoplanets. its successor,the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS),has added approximately 700 more to the list.

Astronomers primarily utilize two methods to detect these distant worlds: observing the slight dimming of a star as a planet passes in front of it (transit method), and measuring the subtle wobbles of a star caused by the gravitational pull of orbiting planets.

The confirmed exoplanets exhibit a remarkable diversity. The current count includes over 2,000 Neptune-like gas planets, almost 2,000 Jupiter-like gas giants, and around 1,700 “super-Earths.” Earth-like rocky planets are less common, with 220 confirmed, largely due to the difficulty in detecting smaller worlds.

Scientists have resolute the mass of roughly one-third of the confirmed exoplanets, finding 102 with masses comparable to Earth and over 500 with similar diameters.

Directly imaging exoplanets remains a challenge, with only about 100 having been photographed to date due to the overwhelming brightness of their host stars.

Future advancements, notably with new telescopes like the James Webb Space Telescope, are expected to accelerate the pace of discovery and enable more detailed examinations of these distant worlds. NASA anticipates that continued technological progress will unlock even greater knowledge about the universe beyond our solar system.