One of the most exciting breakthroughs in the history of astronomy was the discovery of the very first planet that exists outside our own solar system. That historic milestone was reached back in 1995, and since then many more extrasolar planets have been found, including Corot-7b, the first “rocky” extrasolar planet ever discovered.
Today we learned that a group of European astronomers has discovered 30 new extrasolar planets, bringing the grand total in the Interactive Extrasolar Planets Catalog to an amazing 403. It has become quite clear that planets outside our solar system are in fact numerous, and it’s surely only a matter of time before the ones we know about number in the thousands. Could at least one of them be home to intelligent life? I would be very surprised to ever learn that the answer to that question is no.
We now have rock-solid proof that earth-like planets do exist elsewhere in the universe, and I have little doubt that at least a few of them are “Goldilocks planets” (planets that are just the right distance from their host stars to be hospitable for life). Our task is to find them, and given our track record so far I don’t believe it will take all that long to do so.
Quite true.