An exoplanet is a planet that orbits a star outside of the solar system. They are incredibly far away from us. The first exoplanet was discovered 30 years ago, and scientists named it 51 Pegasi b. It is a gas planet just like Jupiter.
Stars are a million times brighter than the planets orbiting around them. The brightness makes other stars that aren’t so bright look invisible. That’s why people can’t see other planets in the daytime. The brightness of the sun makes it invisible. Because of this, fewer than one hundred exoplanets had been photographed directly.
There are two ways scientists can spot an exoplanet: the Transit Method and the Gravitational Microlensing. The Transit Method is a method that scientists use to spot an exoplanet when it path through a star brighter than it. Athena Gravitation Microlensing way is that a planet’s gravity bends the light of the star, and scientists use devices that can detect it.
NASA is a group that studies the universe. They take time confirming a planet is real, up to several years. NASA has powerful telescopes, including the Kepler TESS, and they hope to find some planets we can live on, just like Earth.
Scientists found different kinds of exoplanets. 2035 planets that have a similar size to Neptune, 1984 gas planet, 1761 planets smaller than Neptune but bigger than Earth, 700 rock planets, and seven unknown planets. However, we didn’t find any planets that we can live on. Scientist continue to hope on finding a planet like Earth so we can live in another planet.