Exoplanets play a crucial role in the future of humanity. Once our solar system no longer becomes habitable, we cannot rely on the other planets in our solar system as a new home. NASA has taken action, and on March 6, 2009, the Kepler Space Telescope was launched. This telescope’s mission was to find as many exoplanets as possible. It did this by focusing on a patch of the sky where the overlapping constellations of Lyra, Draco, and Cygnus lay. It looked for rhythmic dips in starlight from the stars, which revealed the presence of exoplanets crossing in front of their suns. In its 3.5-year primary mission, Kepler monitored about 150,000 stars. It ultimately turned up 2,899 exoplanet candidates and 2,681 confirmed worlds during its nine years of service. This begs the question of what kinds of exoplanets are out there, as well as star systems and day and night systems. Kepler gave us a good start to the exoplanet hunt, and to date, we have spotted 5,332 confirmed exoplanets, orbiting in some 3,931 planetary systems. However, this isn’t even the tip of the iceberg. Kepler’s discoveries illustrated that 20% to 50% of stars in the Milky Way have small, rocky, earth-sized planets. There are around 100 billion stars in the Milky Way, which means around 20 million to 50 million stars have planets, possibly even multiple in a system. These rocky planets may have the right temperature to maintain liquid water. With that amount of stars, can’t you imagine the possibilities in landscape or environment variety? Kepler also revealed to us a more common type of world not found in our solar system. These are called “Super-Earths.” A rocky planet larger than Earth but smaller than Neptune. Some of these Super-Earths might be habitable. If humans reached a habitable Super Earth, what do you think they would do with all that land and space? More recently, another milestone was achieved, this time by the newest and most high-tech telescope, the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST). The JWST took its first image of an exoplanet. A young gas giant dubbed HIP 65426 b. This is a huge achievement and shows that we now have the ability to image exoplanets, instead of just detecting their presence. “I think what’s most exciting is that we’ve only just begun,” says Aarynn Carter from the University of California. There are going to be new planets imaged in the future, ones that may shape our understanding of physics, chemistry, and science as a whole. The future of exoplanets and astronomy is looking good and will assist us in our evolution as the human species.

Bibliography:

JWST takes its first direct exoplanet image. (2022, November). BBC Sky at Night, 13. https://link-gale-com.bc.idm.oclc.org/apps/doc/A734677905/GPS?u=43dcbs&sid=bookmark-GPS&xid=484d04d7

Hinkley, S. (2023, March 25). Far out: The James Webb space telescope and the search for alien life. Spectator, 351(10152), 16+. https://link-gale-com.bc.idm.oclc.org/apps/doc/A743661078/GPS?u=43dcbs&sid=bookmark-GPS&xid=8bec97ac 

DICKINSON, D. (2019). The Kepler Space Telescope Comes to an End. Sky & Telescope, 137(2), 12.