The Exoplanets Article of Your Dreams

The  Exoplanets  Article  of Your Dreams

Exoplanets could be the answers
to the questions where could be life
Except Earth ?

Since the evolution of Space, there has been a long thought over, if there are planets outside the Solar System. Everybody was quite certain about their presence but no certain proofs were availaible to justify the theory until 1988. Actually the first Exoplanet was observed in the year 1917, but due to its uncertainity it was ruled out afterwards. As of october 2018, 3851 confirmed exoplanets in 2871 systems have been found, of which 636 systems are thought to be orbited by more than one planet. 

How did we came upon the first exoplanet ?

Kepler Telescope from Nasa
Was launched in March 7, 2009
To study and discover Exoplanets.

The first exoplanet was discovered in the year 1988, but the confirmed discovery came in the year 1992 when a planet was found beside a Pulsar. The pulsar named PSR B1257+12. This discovery was quite astonishing because pulsars are caused when a star is dying out and in such conditions the surrounding planets are distorted long before, but the planet was quite visible. From there on several exoplanets have been detected so far.

ALSO READ - What we know is less than what we don't.

How are exoplanets observed ?

Some exoplanets say that of the size of Jupiter or bigger are directly observed by telescopes but most of the exoplanets are discovered through indirect methods like the transit method and the radial velocity method. 

The High Accuracy Radial Planet Searcher (HARPS) has discovered hundreds of exoplanets so far. Nasa has a special telescope for detection of exoplanets named "The Kepler Telescope". Kepler till date has accounted for about thousands and thousands of exoplanet candidates. 

About 1 in 5 stars have one such planet which is in the habitable zone of its parent star like the Earth. Assuming that there are more than 200 billion stars in the Milky Way, atleast 11 billion Earth like planets may be present in our galaxy alone ! 

The least sized planet like Draugr are only about twice the mass of the moon whereas massive planets like HR 2562 b, which is about 30 times the mass of Jupiter, but some exoplanet experts believe that HR 2562 b is too massive to be a planet rather it is a brown dwarf star. Some exoplanets are so close to their parent stars that they only take a few hours to orbit whereas some are so far away from their star that they take thousands of years to orbit.

The discovery of exoplanets has led to huge rise in interests for extraterrestrial life, especially in planets which are in the habitable zone ( a zone where liquid water can be found on the surface ) of a star.

Moreover besides exoplanets, there are Rogue Planets, which do not orbit stars and roam around in free path, it is believed that The Milky Way alone has billions of Rogue planets.

The closest exoplanet to our Solar System is 

Proxima Centauri b, which is orbiting its star Proxima Centauri about 4.2 light years away. With the accounts of exoplanets inacreasing at a rapid growth, Humanity now has greater options than ever to find life on other places than Earth.

ALSO READ - Types of Civilisations - Kardashev scale.

What do you think is the search for an earth like exoplanet is worth it and is a waste of time and money ? Let us know in the comments section !