With the announcement yesterday by the European Southern Observatory of its finding of 50 more exoplanets, the total count of planets orbiting other suns has been pushed over 600.
NASA's Kepler Planet Finder spacecraft has also identified 1,200 candidate worlds waiting to be confirmed or shown to be false positives. Plus, technology to this point has only allowed the detection of large exoplanets. As technology improves and techniques are refined, smaller worlds-- Earth-sized and even smaller-- will begin to turn up. Likely, there are many more small planets than there are big ones.
It's becoming clear, therefore, that the universe is awash in worlds of a huge range of sizes, masses, and characteristics. Working out the details of how the cosmos is put together will keep scientists busy for a very long time.
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