NASA scientists have confirmed the existence of hundreds of new planets outside of our solar system.
The 301 exoplanets have been newly validated and added to the total tally.
Photo via FOX 10 Phoenix
According to FOX 10, the discoveries were made thanks to a new machine learning method of differentiating between stars and planets far off in space called ExoMiner.
The ExoMiner combs through data previously gathered by NASA’s Kepler and K2 missions to decipher what is and isn’t a planet. The missions gather data on thousands of stars and each one has the potential to host multiple exoplanets.
In a press release, NASA said: “It’s a hugely time-consuming task to pore over massive datasets. ExoMiner solves this dilemma.”
Just as all the planets in our solar system orbit the sun, planets that orbit other stars are called exoplanets. Ahh, we learn something new everyday, huh?
And just before an exoplanet’s existence is “validated,” it’s first “confirmed” by scientists when different observation techniques reveal features that can only be explained by a planet. Some clues scientists look for to find and characterize exoplanets include a star’s wobble, dips in light and miniscule movements.
Hm, interesting…
Photo via NASA
A planet is then “validated” using statistics, meaning how likely or unlikely it is to be a planet based on the data, and according to NASA, if ExoMiner says something is a planet, you can be sure it’s a planet!
The 301 new exoplanets are added to the 4,569 others that are already validated.
This is so cool!
By: Aishah Akashah Ahadiat
