Since 1995 when exoplanet explorers from the Geneva Observatory in Switzerland, Michel Mayor and Didier Queloz –who were recently awarded half of the 2019 Nobel Prize in Physics for their discovery of a planet orbiting a sunlike star named 51 Pegasi– thousands of extrasolar planets have been found, including potentially Earth-like worlds, along with bizarre objects that bear no resemblance to any of the planets in our solar system.
Twenty-Six Years Later…
Twenty-six years later, it is now possible to capture images of planets that could potentially sustain life around nearby stars using a newly developed system for mid-infrared exoplanet imaging. In tandem with a very long observation time, a new study’s authors say they can now use ground-based telescopes to directly capture images of planets about three times the size of Earth within the habitable zones of nearby stars.