And the heaviest is HR 2562 b with a mass of about thirty Jupiters. The lightest is the exoplanet Draugr, which weighs about twice the mass of the moon. They range in mass from a few lunar masses to more than twenty-five Jupiters. Just like the planets of the solar system, exoplanets have many physical properties, such as mass, radius, volume, density, albedo, surface temperature, orbital period, eccentricity, and tilt of the orbit. Source: ALMA (ESO / NAOJ / NRAO) / Benisty et al Using the ALMA radio telescope (Atacama Large Millimeter / submillimeter Array), astronomers found near the inner edge of the dust ring surrounding the PDS 70 star a young exoplanet with its own dust disk - apparently its satellites will later form from it. For this discovery, they were awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2019 (the second half was awarded to James Peebles for research in cosmology).Īccording to NASA, as of September 9, 2021, there were a total of 4,566 confirmed exoplanets, 7,913 candidates in need of verification, and 3,385 planetary systems. And in 1995, astronomers Michel Major and Didier Queloz discovered the exoplanet 51 Pegasus b, which orbits around a star of the main sequence. This exoplanet is one of three extrasolar planets orbiting the PSR B1 257 + 12 pulsar. The first officially confirmed exoplanet is considered to be PSR B1 257 + 12 s, which was discovered in 1992 by Aleksander Wolszczan at the Arecibo Radio Observatory. However, even before the telescopes Giordano Bruno in his work “On Infinity, the Universe and the Worlds” suggested that, besides our planet, - our own world, - there might be innumerable other worlds, including inhabited ones.Īnd at least some of his predictions definitely proved true! Today it is known that outside our solar system there are planets that revolve around other stars - exoplanets (or extrasolar planets). Only after the invention of the telescope in the early XVII century, people were able to see the surface of these heavenly objects. The word “planet” translated from Greek as “sky wanderer.” Ancient Greek stargazers gave this name to several bright celestial bodies, which change their position relative to the “star background” - the constellations. How did we manage to make such progress? Protoplanetary disk PDS 70 with the newly formed planet PDS 70b (right).
We now know a lot about physical characteristics and even atmospheric properties of many of them. The number of confirmed exoplanets is now approaching 5,000. As for now it must be the liveliest of all branches of astronomy. Since then, their research has actively progressed. Later, the term “exoplanet” began to be used to denote them. Only thirty years ago, the existence of the first such objects was proven by scientific methods. Not so long ago, planets outside the solar system could be found only on the pages of fiction stories or among purely theoretical considerations of scientists.