Did you know that humanity has found over 6,000 planets beyond our solar system—and we’re just getting started? Imagine looking up at the night sky and realizing there are thousands of mysterious worlds out there, just waiting for us to say hello.

NASA just hit a massive milestone: the official tally of confirmed exoplanets—planets orbiting stars outside our solar system—has now soared past 6,000. Every time a new world is discovered, it’s added to the count on NASA’s ever-growing ‘planet scoreboard,’ run by the Exoplanet Science Institute (NExScI) at Caltech in Pasadena, California. No single planet gets the glory of being #6,000, because the list is constantly refreshed as international teams confirm new finds. But make no mistake: this milestone highlights decades of relentless cosmic exploration that’s completely changed what humans see when we gaze at the stars.

It’s wild to think that just 30 years ago, the first exoplanet was found orbiting a star similar to our Sun. Fast forward to today, and NASA is leading the charge to answer the ultimate question: Are we alone in the universe? As acting director Shawn Domagal-Goldman puts it, this breakthrough is American ingenuity at its best—and a promise that unites us all in the hunt for cosmic neighbors. With NASA’s upcoming next-gen telescopes, like the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope and the Habitable Worlds Observatory, we’re preparing for a new era where discovering another Earth is no longer just science fiction.

But not all planets are created equal. The universe is a wild place! Our own solar system maintains a balanced mix of rocky and giant planets, but it turns out rocky planets are way more common across the galaxy. Scientists are also stumbling upon worlds that defy all logic: there are Jupiter-sized planets that hug their stars tighter than Mercury does ours, planets orbiting two suns like Tatooine from Star Wars, and even planets that have no star at all—just drifting in endless darkness. Some planets are literal lava hellscapes, others have the density of Styrofoam, and a few are wrapped in clouds made of gemstones. Each new discovery expands our understanding of how strange, diverse, and flat-out awesome the cosmos really is.

So how do astronomers actually spot these hidden worlds? Directly seeing an exoplanet is like trying to spot a firefly next to a stadium floodlight—almost impossible! That’s why most exoplanets are discovered indirectly, for example, by watching for tiny dips in a star’s brightness as a planet crosses in front of it. Out of more than 8,000 exoplanet candidates, only a small fraction have been directly imaged, because confirming each one takes painstaking follow-up with powerful telescopes and teams around the world working together. NASA’s Exoplanet Archive—housed at NExScI—is the digital hub where these discoveries get logged, debated, and, finally, confirmed.

And the pace is only picking up. It took three decades to hit 5,000 confirmed exoplanets, but the last 1,000 were found in just the past three years. With NASA’s Roman Space Telescope ready to launch soon, plus help from international partners like the European Space Agency’s Gaia mission, we’re expecting thousands more planet discoveries in the near future. These missions use clever techniques like gravitational microlensing and astrometry to spot new planets, even those that would otherwise stay hidden in their star’s glare.

The holy grail? Finding rocky, Earth-like planets with just the right conditions for life. NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope has already analyzed the atmospheres of over 100 exoplanets, searching for biosignatures—hints that life might exist elsewhere. But to catch a real Earth twin, we’ll need even better tech. Enter the Roman Coronagraph, a new instrument that aims to block out starlight so we can actually see faint, distant planets, and eventually, maybe even a true Earth 2.0.

Behind the scenes, teams at NASA’s Exoplanet Exploration Program and NExScI are coordinating this cosmic treasure hunt, bringing together scientists and data from around the globe. Each new planet brings us closer to answering one of humanity’s oldest questions—are we truly alone, or is there something, or someone, out there looking back?

Stay tuned for the next AI generated newscast about exoplanet discoveries, because the universe is far stranger—and more crowded—than you ever imagined.