Sticking with space news for one more day, did you realize that we (and by we, I mean astronomers, not me at all) have found over 700 planets outside our own solar system?
I should clarify, according to the Extrasolar Planets Encyclopedia, run by Jean Schneider of the Paris-Meudon Observatory, 702 planets outside our solar system have been located. NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory maintains a different database called PlanetQuest: New Worlds Atlas, and it currently has 687 alien planets.
What’s really exciting is how quickly the databases have grown in recent years. I love living in an age of discovery.
Tags: alien planets, extrasolar planets encyclopedia, jean schneider, jet propulsion lab, NASA, paris-meudon observatory, planetquest