No planets to thousands.
(Science Week – Day 4!)
On my first day awake, astronomers already knew about the dramatically different worlds of our solar system.
Only in the last decade, thanks to the shoulders on which this generation’s astronomers stand, did the count of confirmed planets in the galaxy rise to dozens, to hundreds, to the current tally of thousands. “More planets than stars,” it now appears.
Science week? For most, never even one day? I balk at why this isn’t a routine of idle conversation, and that “isn’t this amazing?” isn’t a recurring portion of it. What kind of person wouldn’t think so? Visit one world per day for the rest of your life, and barely brush the worlds of our galaxy before even having considered the beach of sand grains representing other galaxies.
Opportunity received a fair amount of media hype – and it earned its recognition on one planet’s soil. Today’s clip is about one satellite, also bid goodbye last year, that helped us – we privileged, we living today – discover thousands.