![]() ![]() ![]() The search for exoplanets was born in the fields of astronomy and astrophysics, but it has always been intertwined with astrobiology as well. With advances in the instruments and knowledge that make possible the exoplanet hunt, the focus has been increasing refined to identify planets lying in habitable zones – at distances from their host stars that would allow water to remain at least periodically liquid on a planet’s surface. By now more than 5,000 exoplanets have been officially identified – via NASA missions such as the Kepler Space Telescope, the Transiting Exoplanet Space Telescope ( TESS), the Hubble Space Telescope as well as ground-based observations - and billions more await discovery. Since ancient times, natural philosophers, then scientists, and untold interested others predicted, assumed even, that many other planets orbited their stars. Consider, too, the revolution in understanding that has taken place since the mid-1990s regarding planets and moons in solar systems well beyond ours. ![]()
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