Exploring exoplanets — worlds orbiting alien stars — talking with Thayne Currie of NAOJ, who recently found a bizarre massive planet.

This week on The Cosmic Companion, we look at exoplanets — worlds orbiting alien stars. We are joined by Dr. Thayne Currie, astrophysicist at The Subaru Telescope, who recently discovered a planet nine times more massive than Jupiter orbiting a young star a little over 500 light years from Earth.

On 21 March 2022, NASA confirmed the 5,000th confirmed exoplanet, marking a milestone in our understanding of the Cosmos.

Three decades before, the first exoplanets were found orbiting pulsars — rapidly spinning corpses of stars, during the second week of 1992. This was the week Kristi Yamaguchi won the US female Figure Skating championship, Paul Simon opened a tour of South Africa, and President George H. W. Bush got ill at the home of the Japanese Prime Minister.

On 6 October 1995 (the day after O.J. Simpson was found innocent of murder), astronomers announced the discovery of 51 Pegasi, the first exoplanet found around a healthy, active, main-sequence star.

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