Tag: exoplanets
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Exoplanets
Our theme for the month of August is Exoplanets, planets outside of our Solar System. In March, the number of confirmed exoplanets climbed past 5000, and there are nearly 9000 waiting to be confirmed as exoplanets. To commemorate this milestone, I thought we could take a look at the history, and the future, of exoplanet research.
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Exoplanets
Imagine for a moment that you are an alien adventurer who has ventured far from home to explore our solar system (though you, an extraterrestrial, would call it an exosystem). You were sent by your species on a mission to investigate the worlds of this system – to find out if these environments are suitable for life, and if they host intelligent lifeforms. You, being an alien, a foreigner, want to avoid accidentally contaminating our planets, so you’ve been given strict instructions not to land. Instead, you may only observe them from afar and make whatever inferences you can.