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We should count ourselves lucky. For thousands of years humans have gazed up at the night sky, wondering whether or not we are alone. We are among the first generations to know for sure that our Solar System is just one of many strung out across the vast cosmos. Our discovery of around 4,000 alien worlds dancing around distant stars – known as exoplanets – over the last three decades has quite rightly been lauded. It’s a wonderful achievement that helps put us in our astronomical place. The haul has thrown up a zoo of exciting and enchanting worlds, from those that dance around two suns to planets with diamond rain, bubbling metal lava and possibly even liquid water.
Despite the accolades, these discoveries are rarely put into their true context. It is easy to forget just how much of the universe’s real estate remains unexplored. All of the confirmed planets found to date reside in our own Milky Way galaxy, and in our tiny corner of it to boot. There are around 2 trillion other galaxies in the observable universe. To see how much we’ve poked around in so far, imagine that this hoard of galaxies is represented by the total land area of the Earth. On that scale, our Milky Way accounts for the space taken up by the average UK bungalow. The area that includes the thousands of exoplanets we’ve found so far is smaller than a sock drawer in the spare bedroom.
Esta historia es de la edición Issue 111 de All About Space.
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Esta historia es de la edición Issue 111 de All About Space.
Comience su prueba gratuita de Magzter GOLD de 7 días para acceder a miles de historias premium seleccionadas y a más de 9,000 revistas y periódicos.
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"We knew that this would be a historic comet"
Astronomer David Levy was immortalised for his co-discovery of Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 – its impact with Jupiter 29 years ago held the world in awe
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CELESTRON STARSENSE EXPLORER DX 102AZ
Innovative technology provides the simplest and quickest solution yet to finding objects to observe, and this instrument will be very popular with beginners
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MOON TOUR - COPERNICUS
Get up close to the ‘Monarch of the Moon’
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A HUNGRY BLACK HOLE 'SWITCHES ON' AS ASTRONOMERS WATCH IN SURPRISE
J221951 is one of the most extreme examples yet
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MYSTERIES OF THE UNIVERSE - WHY DOES JUPITER CHANGE COLOUR?
For years, scientists have tried to work out why Jupiter’s bands frequently move and change colour. Now they believe they’ve found the answer
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MARS HELICOPTER PHONES HOME AFTER A 63-DAY SILENCE
Rugged terrain had kept Ingenuity from communicating with its robotic partner, the Perseverance rover
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SIX OF THE BEST SPACE PRANKS
It turns out that the sky isn’t the limit when it comes to a good old-fashioned practical joke
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CLIMATES CHANGE IN THE SOLAR SYSTEM
Alongside Earth, our planetary neighbourhood is changing. But not for the better…
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TIME APPEARED TO MOVE FIVE TIMES SLOWER IN THE FIRST BILLION YEARS AFTER THE BIG BANG
Time dilation, brought about by the relativistic expansion of space, has resulted in the observed slowing of ‘clocks’ in the early universe
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WHAT CAN WE DO WITH A CAPTURED ASTEROID?
Asteroids could provide us with rare resources