JAKARTA – Exoplanets are planets outside the solar system, but still in the Milky Way Galaxy. This planet usually orbits another star, such as Earth’s activity orbiting the Sun.
Currently, the number of exoplanets that have been confirmed by the United States Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) has reached 5,496 planets. There are still many unexplored exoplanets and the unconfirmed number reaches 9,820 planets.
Evidence of the existence of exoplanets first appeared in 1917 and was discovered by an astronomer named Adriaan van Maanen. This astronomer identified a white dwarf or polluted degenerate dwarf which is currently called van Maanen’s star.
Even though the evidence has been around for a long time, this exoplanet was only confirmed in 1990. After that first confirmation, exoplanets continued to be discovered until the number reached thousands. Actively, NASA continues to search for the presence of exoplanets using space telescopes.
Confirmed and unconfirmed exoplanets so far are still in the Milky Way Galaxy region. The closest exoplanet to Earth is Proxima Centauri b. This planet is about four light years away, one year is equivalent to 9.46 trillion kilometers.
All the exoplanets discovered by astronomers have names, but the names are always long and complicated to remember because they are not as simple as the names of the planets in the solar system. Actually, there is a reason behind its long name.
Astronomers had to find a way to categorize these planets. To differentiate the types, exoplanet names use alphanumerics and proper names are alphabetical such as Kepler-20d or TRAPPIST-1e.
The first part of an exoplanet’s name is the name of the telescope or type of survey that discovered the planet. Next, exoplanets will use numbers in their names according to the position of the planet.
Meanwhile, the lowercase letters in the names of exoplanets represent the order in which they were discovered. The first planet discovered will be given the letter b, then the next planet will be named c, d, e, f, and so on.
The letter categories for determining the order of discovery must be in lower case. The reason is, uppercase letters such as A, B, C, and so on are only used for orbiting stars. Exoplanets also do not use the letter A because this letter is only used for orbiting stars.
Tag: space exoplanet solar system planet
2024-01-04 16:05:00
#History #Discovery #Exoplanets #Farthest #Planets #Milky #Galaxy
