photo: getty
WHOAHHHH!
we earthlings cannot be the only fools in existence.
there's just no way.
NASA is revealing an out-of-this-world milestone. There are now more than five-thousand planets beyond the solar system. Astronomers just added 65 more but believe the number is really in the billions. They say some are rocky worlds like Earth, although just four percent.Thirty-percent are gas giants and the rest are either considered super-Earths or mini-Neptunes.
In a milestone for astronomy – and possibly the search for extraterrestrial life – NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory confirmed there are now 5,000 known planets beyond our solar system.
These so-called exoplanets include rocky worlds roughly the size of Earth, gas giants larger than Jupiter and "mini-Neptunes."
"It's not just a number," Jessie Christiansen, science lead for the NASA Exoplanet Archive and a research scientist with the NASA Exoplanet Science Institute at Caltech, said in a statement.
"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," Christiansen added.
Scientists are getting better at discovering them too:
Scientists' ability to find new exoplanets is exploding, with a growing understanding of how to locate planets beyond our solar system and the technological tools to do it, such as the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite launched in 2018 and the recently launched James Webb Space Telescope.
Our galaxy is likely home to billions of exoplanets, NASA says. And the truth about extraterrestrial life may be out there.
Photo: Getty Images