Gaia space observatory could discover 70,000 new Jupiters

After a 20-year search, astronomers have uncovered a grand total of 1,900 planets residing outside of the Solar System. According to a new Princeton study, the Gaia space observatory launched by the European Space Agency (ESA) could help that figure grow by a factor of ten by the end of the decade, eventually reaching 70,000 planets after 10 years of scouting.

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I don’t trust anybody who clls their space observatory gaia.

Peak Warming Man said:

I don’t trust anybody who clls their space observatory gaia.

I know what you mean, it’s a terrible choice of name.

> Subject: Gaia space observatory could discover 70,000 new Jupiters

Gaia’s main aim is to to map in 3-D this side of the Milky Way by means of very accurate position measurements of stars. Gaia will observe 1 billion of the roughly 100 billion stars in the Milky Way. By comparison, 70,000 new ‘hot’ Jupiters (it won’t find cold Jupiters in orbit, and is not set up to detect brown dwarfs because it’s not set up to detect those wavelengths) is only 0.0007% of 1 billion.

In fairness, it is just Greek for Earth