Exoplanets: Are There Other Earths?

Sat, 15 Nov 2025 11:42:57 +0000

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Is Earth the only living needle in this haystack of planets?

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Are there exoplanets like Earth? We live in one of a hundred billion of galaxies, each with hundreds of billions of stars. And now, thanks to modern astronomy, we know that the Milky Way is home to perhaps a hundred billion planets! In the past two decades, these exoplanet discoveries have spawned new questions about our universe, and if there might be another Earth, or other life, somewhere out there.

In part 1 of our two-part series on exoplanets, we'll look at how astronomers find exoplanets, and what it means to call them Earth-like. We'll trace the history of planetary science back three thousand years and examine Earth's changing status in the cosmos. We were once the center of the universe, and now Earth is just another rock in the sky. What does that mean for us?

Check out "Five Billion Years of Solitude" by Lee Billings: http://amzn.to/18Tzv59

This week's t-shirt comes from Wowch: http://www.wowch.com/puppyplanet

More reading:

There are five billion Earth-like planets in the Milky Way: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11..../05/science/cosmic-c

The exoplanet catalog: http://phl.upr.edu/projects/ha....bitable-exoplanets-c

Methods of detecting exoplanets: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M....ethods_of_detecting_

Interactive catalog of Kepler's exoplanet discoveries: http://www.nytimes.com/interac....tive/science/space/k

A philosophical and historical look at the exoplanet revolution: http://www.aeonmagazine.com/na....ture-and-cosmos/the-

The Kepler telescope and the "adjacent possible": http://nautil.us/blog/clever-a....pes-a-busted-telesco

How the Kepler telescope scanned the sky: http://www.itsokaytobesmart.co....m/post/62343351213/k

An ode to the late Kepler telescope: http://www.theatlantic.com/tec....hnology/archive/2013

Joe Hanson - Host and writer
Joe Nicolosi - Director
Amanda Fox - Producer
Katie Graham - Director of Photography
Andrew Matthews - Editor and Motion Graphics
Kate Eads - Production Manager

Filmed at Onion Creek Productions in Austin, TX

Produced by PBS Digital Studios: http://www.youtube.com/user/pbsdigitalstudios

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