The number of known alien planets, also called exoplanets , passed 1,000 this week, according to the online Extrasolar Planets Encyclopedia.
The search for exoplanets began two decades ago, making this week’s number a huge accomplishment. Two of the five main databases that catalog alien worlds listed 1,010 confirmed alien worlds as of Tuesday, and the number will continue to grow.
Researchers found the first-ever exoplanets orbiting a spinning neutron star , or pulsar, in 1992, reports Space.com . The current tally is likely a speck of sand on the beach compared to how many planets are in the universe.
According to a study published last year, every star in the Milky Way hosts 1.6 planets on average, meaning our galaxy alone is home to about 160 billion exoplanets.
The rate of discovery has climbed rapidly since the presence of three planet-size masses was detected in 1992, notes National Geographic . The development of indirect detection, along with other techniques have helped astronomers find planets more quickly.
NASA’s Kepler Telescope, which went offline this summer, helped confirm 156 of the over 1,000 known alien planets, and has almost 3,000 potential planetary candidates waiting for analysis and confirmation.
Despite all the confirmed exoplanets, the search for a truly earth-like world still eludes us. Jaymie Matthrew, an astronomer at the University of British Columbia in Canada, believes that elusive world could be found in Kepler’s existing data. He explained, “At this point we may be close to finding an Earth-like world, and it could just be a matter of trolling through data sets and doing follow-up observations with ground-based observatories.”
Kepler was the most prolific instruments in the search for alien planets, but its mission ended in May after four years when the second of four orientation-maintaining wheels failed. Still, the telescope was able to detect thousands of possible planets before it stopped working, allowing scientists possibly years of follow-up research.
[Image via ShutterStock ]
