The discovery of planets outside our solar system changed the course of science.
The detection of the first confirmed exoplanets, which are worlds that are outside our solar system, was a validation of the belief that stars, globes, suns and earths may be sensibly perceived. The world 51 Pegasi b was found in 1995 and led to the award of a prize in physics.
NASA says the list of known exoplanets has topped 5,000. With the aid of sophisticated space telescopes, this dazzling abundance and variety of worlds has been seen. There are hot Jupiters that are close to their stars and super-Earths that are unmoored from their planets. Habitability is a sign that some worlds could host alien life.
To celebrate the milestone, experts and enthusiasts shared their favorite exoplanets or exoplanetary systems among the thousands of worlds to choose from.
The first confirmed exoplanets were Poltergeist and Phobetor. The Arecibo telescope in Puerto Rico was used to detect planets around a dead star.
The discovery of Poltergeist and Phobetor were the first exoplanets with Earth-like mass and the first multiplanet system.
If you can make planets around a neutron star, they should be common around all kinds of stars.
The first confirmed exoplanets in history, Poltergeist and Phobetor, were spotted in 1988 by scientists in British Columbia. The existence of Tadmor was disputed for years by its own discoverers, but was finally confirmed in 2002.
Chris Hadfield said that firsts are important to him and that is one of the reasons that Tadmor is his favorite exoplanet.
Mr. Hadfield said that it was detected by three Canadians and they just couldn't do it.
The one I think ends up being the most historic is the one that is the first one.
The TRAPPIST-1 system has seven rocky planets and is located 40 light-years from Earth.
Lisa Kaltenegger, director of the Carl Sagan Institute at Cornell University, said that the system had four planets in the "habitable zone", the region around a star where liquid water could potentially exist.
Wouldn't it be amazing to find more than one world around a single star?
The view from these planets would be mind-blowing, noted Tim Pyle, a multimedia producer who helped create some of the well-known visualization of TRAPPIST-1 for NASA.
The seven Earth-sized planets around a single star are so close together that they would be a fixture in each other. Imagine lying on the deck of a boat on a TRAPPIST-1e ocean, looking above you, and seeing other planets as large as we see the full moon from Earth!
There are five known exoplanets in the star TOI-1233, which is more than 200 light-years from Earth. In 2020, four of these worlds were spotted.
Tansu Daylan, a researcher at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, said that TOI-1233 is an outstanding planetary system with its high number of transiting planets, sunlike host star and its proximity to the solar system.
Dr. Daylan found the system with two high school students.
Ms. Wright is studying computer science at the University of Colorado Boulder.
The senior at Cambridge Rindge and Latin School in Massachusetts said that there was still much to be discovered.
He said that it is a prime candidate for follow-up observation, particularly from the recently launched James Webb Space Telescope.
The ring system of the possible exoplanet J1407b appears to stretch as far as Earth is from the sun.
This world made an impression on Ann Druyan, who created the original television series "Cosmos: A Personal Voyage" with her husband, Carl.
She said that it was an indication of what the variety of worlds could be.
There are doubts about the original detection of J1407b. That also appeals to Ms.
She said that she loved the idea that it might be there.
Half of the 5,000 known exoplanets were spotted by the NASA space telescope. William Borucki, the principal investigator, has a favorite, a super-Earth about 1,000 light-years from Earth.
It is in the right place. It is the same size as the Earth. He said in an email that it could be a rocky world or a water world.
He said that any life on the planet could be much more advanced than the life on the ground.
The first rocky planet was discovered by the telescope in 2011. The planet is about four times the size of Earth. It is a nightmare world because of its close proximity to its star.
I like to think of it as an alternate version of Earth with an alternate version of myself living on that planet. The Crazy Ex-Girlfriend co-creator said she would be a fearsome lava monster who still likes show tunes.
The closest star to us is a red dwarf called Proxima Centauri, which is four light-years away. Sharon Xuesong Wang is a scientist at Tsinghua University in Beijing and she is very interested in the three exoplanets, Proxima b, c and d.
There is a chance that we could see a mission flying somewhere closer to the system to study the planets.
The director of the Planetary Habitability Laboratory at the University of Puerto Rico at Arecibo chose Proxima Centauri b as his favorite.
We should be able to see the land and ocean with new telescopes. Information about the atmosphere and surface properties would show whether these are really worlds.
Kelt-11b is a hot Jupiter that was first reported. The first light curve, a measurement of a star's brightness that reveals exoplanets, was found on the planet by the European Space Agency.
We were able to determine its size with an accuracy five times better than from Earth, setting the uncertainty in its size to around 4,200 kilometers.
Luis Calçada is a science visualization artist who works with the European Southern Observatory.
The star is only 25 light-years away from us and is central to the novel. He pursued a degree in astronomy after reading the book. I became a science illustrator after that. This book has been present in a defining moment of my life. Seeing a planet being discovered was very exciting.
Wil Wheaton was familiar with fictional worlds and new forms of life while he was on Star Trek: The Next Generation. He picked YZ Ceti b because it is close to a red dwarf, which is 12 light years away.
It doesn't make sense that we are the only intelligent species in the universe. I know they are.
Our most urgent challenge as a species right now is to take care of the only planet we can live on so that generations from now, in a future so far away, we cannot imagine what it will be.
The youngest star system on this list is 500 million years old. The system is still a baby in terms of astronomy, but it is already home to multiple planets with enigmatic properties, according to a staff scientist at the Carnegie Institution for Science.
The system's three planets were nicknamed "super puffs" because of their low density and challenge our understanding of how planets form and how they evolve.
He said that he likes them because they show that the universe is more imaginative than we are.
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