We have discovered over 4,000 exoplanets since the 1990s and we will continue to chart new territories and places in space. So NASA made it a lot easier for us to see these exoplanets in a wider perspective. With the map that they created, they charted more than 4,000 exoplanets that we have been to find.
But how have we discovered so many exoplanets so quickly? Well, we can thank the now-retired Kepler Telescope for a lot of the rapid growth. The number of planets found increased substantially once Kepler began helping in the search for exoplanets. New tech like the Kepler Telescope uses radial velocity which measures the movements and the color signature of a star.
Now that Kepler is retired, NASA's Hubble successor, the James Webb Telescope, will take over some of Kepler's responsibilities. The James Webb Telescope is set to reach orbit in 2021 where it will be able to find exoplanets and have the ability to discern whether the foreign planets would be able to sustain life.
(Image credit: Chado Nihi/Pixabay)
Here's a video showing the map. If you look at the chart, the exoplanets are represented by various colors and sizes of circles which tell us how they were detected.