Within just 50 light-years from Earth, there are about 1,560 stars, likely orbited by several thousand planets.
Some may even harbor life.
Over 99 percent of these alien worlds remain undiscovered but this is about to change.
Undiscovered worlds all around us
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Take, for example, Proxima Centauri, an unassuming, faint red star, invisible without a telescope.
Orbiting Proxima is a fascinating but mysterious world, called Proxmia b,discoveredonly in 2016.
Scientists know surprisingly little aboutProxima b. Astronomers name the first planet discovered in a system b.
This planet has never been seen with human eyes or by a telescope.
Proxima bvery likely has a rocky composition similar to Earths,but higher mass.
It receives about the same amount of heat as Earth receives from the Sun.
maybe even an atmosphere bearing the telltale chemical signs of life.
NASAs TESS missionlaunched in April 2018 to hunt for other broadly Earth-sized planets, but with a different method.
These transit events indicate not only the presence of the planets, but also their sizes and orbits.
Each of these systems is unique.
For example,LP 791-18is a red dwarf star 86 light-years from Earth around which TESS found two worlds.
Neither of these planets have counterparts in our solar system.
Artists impression of an exoplanet transiting a red dwarf star.
Calcada
No Earth-like worlds yet
But how Earth-like are Earth-sized planets?
The promise of finding nearby worlds for detailed studies is already paying off.
The TESS mission was initially funded for two years.
Illustration of TESS, NASAs Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite.
The discovery of theseven transiting Earth-sized exoplanetsin the TRAPPIST-1 system was groundbreaking.
It also demonstrated how small telescopes relative to the powerful behemoths of our age can still make transformational discoveries.
Its Earth-sized worlds would have remained undiscovered had the TRAPPIST teams larger telescope not found them.
Two projects have upped up the game in the search for exo-Earth candidates around nearby red dwarfs.
TheSPECULOOS teaminstalled four robotic telescopes also in the Atacama desert and one in the Northern Hemisphere.
TESS is likely to find between10,000 and 15,000 exoplanet candidatesby 2025.
By 2030, the European Space AgencysGAIAandPLATOmissions are expected to findanother 20,000-35,000 planets.
Many of these worlds can be studied in great detail including the search for signs of life.
Discoveries of the nearest worlds also represent major steps in humanitys progress in exploring the universe we live in.
After mapping our own planet and then the solar system, we now turn to nearby planetary systems.
But first weve got to put these worlds on the map.
