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instagram.com/astronomy.magazine4 ASTRONOMY • JUNE 2022
FROM THE EDITOR
Editor David J. Eicher
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ART
IllustratorRoen Kelly
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bank. BN 12271 3209 RT. Not responsible for unsolicited materials.One of the great aims of this
magazine is to underscore that
we are awash in a golden age of
astronomy. The previous generation pro-
duced a firehose of discoveries and new
understandings of many old questions
about the cosmos. In terms of compre-
hending the universe and our place in it,
we’re living in the best time there ever was.
No area of astrophysics, planetary sci-
ence, or cosmology better represents that
than astronomers discovering planets
orbiting stars around us in the Milky Way
Galaxy. The first find came in 1992, and
since then, scientists have detected nearly
5,000 exoplanets orbiting 3,670 stars. And the search has just begun.
As technologies improve over time, we’ll be able to find smaller
and smaller planets at greater and greater distances. No doubt we’ll
continue to witness what our understanding of how stars form
comfortably predicts: that planets are abundant in the cosmos.
In “Exoplanets: How we discovered other worlds” (page 24),
Brian May, Patrick Moore, Chris Lintott, and Hannah Wakeford
describe what we know of planets outside our solar system. This
important story is an excerpt from a recently published book, the
second edition of BANG!!, which you can order from our online
store, MyScienceShop.com.
T he upd ate on exopla net s h i nt s broad ly at a que st ion we don’t yet
know the answer to: How common is life in the universe? Despite
the facts we now have — that stars around us have lots of planets,
our galaxy has several hundred billion stars, and at least 100 billion
galaxies exist in the cosmos — we as yet know of only one place
with life, right here.
But spectroscopy tells us that chemistry is consistent throughout
the universe, and the stuff of life is out there in abundance. The
only comet sample returned to Earth, for example, contains an
amino acid.
We’re getting closer to answering that very big question. Exciting
times lie ahead.Exoplanet explosion
Yo u r s t r u l y,
David J. Eicher
Editor
Follow the
Dave’s Universe blog:
http://www.Astronomy.
com/davesuniverse
Follow Dave Eicher
on Twitter:
@deicherstarAs we would expect
from understanding
how stars form,
planets are very
common in
the galaxy.
ASTRONOMY: ROEN KELLY