Macintosh: It was a combination of really carefully ruling out other explanations and of having the confidence to assert that they found an exoplanet. The short answer: The scientists were confident and very thorough in eliminating other possible (non-exoplanet) explanations for their findings.

How did the Nobel Prize-winning discovery tip the scales? It turns out, also, the universe seems to favor small planets and, so, as the techniques got more sensitive, they’ve found more and more. Another half-dozen exoplanet discoveries came right after because they had just been sitting in peoples’ closets, unanalyzed, waiting for this kind of strong argument. Then, the 1995 paper, from Michel Mayor and Didier Queloz – that led to their winning the Nobel Prize in 2019 – strongly argued that we really were seeing exoplanets. There were tentative early discoveries but they didn’t match expectations, so they didn’t really change the field that much.

This was such a popular idea that people working in the field early on had trouble getting access to telescopes and funding. Macintosh: Many people thought that other solar systems were like our own – a few small rocky planets closer to the sun, and some giant planets further out – and that it would, therefore, be nearly impossible to find exoplanets because our tools aren’t sensitive enough to see into those kinds of systems. The short answer: The 25-year-old paper that won the Nobel Prize in 2019 convinced scientists that they already had the tools to see exoplanets – then the discoveries kept rolling in. Four thousand exoplanets have been found in just 30 years.

What upcoming developments for your group are you excited about?ġ.

What exoplanet news would you be surprised to see?.

What big advances or discoveries do you think could be just around the corner?.

Why should we care about exoplanets that aren’t like Earth?.

What about “habitable” exoplanets or the “habitable zone”?.

We hear about exoplanets that are Earth-like.

The Gemini Planet Imager project that you’re a part of uses a different technique from the others you mentioned.

What else can we learn about exoplanets?.

How do most astronomers “see” exoplanets?.

How did the Nobel Prize-winning discovery tip the scales?.

Four thousand exoplanets have been found in just 30 years.

“This makes me think that Earth is probably a very special planet.” Here are the 14 questions Macintosh answered : “One of the most interesting things we’ve learned since finding the first exoplanet 30 years ago is how different the universe is compared to what we thought it was – how different other solar systems are from our own,” said Macintosh, a professor of physics in the School of Humanities and Sciences.

Exoplanets discovered