Discovery of Hundreds of Exoplanets Outside the Solar System

Astronomers have successfully discovered 1,284 new planets outside the solar system, of which 9 are believed to be potentially habitable. According to Reuters, with this announcement last week, the total number of registered exoplanets has reached 3,264. Most of these planets, referred to as 'exoplanets', were discovered by NASA's Kepler Space Telescope. One of the telescope's missions is to find habitable planets similar to Earth. The newly announced planets are part of the discoveries from Kepler's four-year mission, which concluded in 2013. Scientists have stated that they used new methods to analyze this latest discovery, which is considered the largest of its kind. Mathematical models were employed to prove the orbits of these planets. Paul Hertz, director of NASA's astrophysics division, says, 'Now we know that the number of planets exceeds the number of stars.' According to Hertz, this knowledge will help scientists get closer to finding life beyond Earth. Reuters reports that among the discovered planets, 550 have rocky surfaces similar to Earth. The distance of 9 of them from their respective stars is such that their temperatures are suitable for the existence of water on their surfaces. With this new discovery, the number of planets where water and life may exist rises to 21. The Kepler Space Telescope has accurately measured the light emitted from 150,000 stars. One reason for the variation in the amount of light received from these stars could be the transit of one of the planets across the path of the light received by Kepler. By precisely measuring these changes and their timing, the existence of a planet can be confirmed. The data analysis technique was developed by astronomers at Princeton University, led by Tim Morton. This analysis method can indicate what changes in light are due to a planet's transit and what changes are due to the star's own interactions. Morton has stated that he and his colleagues can say with approximately 99% certainty that these 1,284 discovered objects are planets orbiting their stars. Based on the results of this new discovery and the analyses of astronomers, there could be ten billion habitable planets in our galaxy.