What makes people so fascinated about exoplanets?

We regularly find so many planets that we now talk about them in bouquets: 1,091 new candidates! Wait ... Do they have multiple planets, like ours does? Do they ... But astronomers are obsessed with finding one that really is an “Earth-like planet” (aka “Earth 2.0,” “Earth analog,” or “Earth twin”). read more

If we find extraterrestrial life it will most likely be extrasolar so everyone looks at those exoplanets, especially those in the Goldilocks Zone, in hopes of witnessing the single biggest scientific discovery of our era and being able to say you were one of the first to look at the planet where it was found. read more

Astronomers have found an exoplanet nearly 13,000 light-years away, making it one of the most distant planets known to man. This discovery is important not because of the planet itself, a gas giant about half the size of Jupiter, but because what it means for the future of planetary discovery and mapping. read more