Over 400 years ago, Galileo shattered humanity’s understanding of the cosmos when he realized that Earth wasn’t the center of the universe, and that our world orbited the Sun, proving Nicolaus Copernicus’ theory from the 1500s correct.
A mere century ago, astronomers believed the Milky Way comprised the entire universe. It wasn’t until 1925, when Edwin Hubble was able to measure the distance to a star in what became the Andromeda galaxy, that humanity discovered that our “universe” was only one galaxy in a cosmic ocean.
And in 1995, astronomers discovered the first exoplanet orbiting another Sun-like star in the Milky Way, further displacing our solar system as unique.
Now, just a few decades later, scientists have confirmed over 5,000 exoplanets within our galaxy. The new record was reached March 21 when 65 new exoplanets joined the NASA Exoplanet Archive. The archive tracks exoplanet discoveries that have been published in peer-reviewed papers and marks them “confirmed” when they are spotted or verified with multiple techniques.
“It’s not just a number,” said Jessie Christiansen, science lead for the archive in a press release. “Each one of them is a new world, a brand-new planet. I get excited about every one because we don’t know anything about them.”