Myth vs Reality: Abundance of Earth-sized Planets

 

 

 

Produced by the Space Telescope Science Institute’s Office of Public Outreach.

 

All images, illustrations, and videos courtesy of NASA except:

 

·       Photo of a hot spring courtesy of the National Park Service/Jim Peaco

·       Photo of crabs at a deep-sea hydrothermal vent courtesy of Alex D. Rogers (University of Oxford)

·       Photo of a Pompeii worm courtesy of University of Delaware, College of Earth, Ocean, and Environment

·       Photo of a ship’s wake courtesy of Andrzej Otrębski

·       Photo of a clown fish courtesy of Wikimedia user Ritiks

·       Photos of a sea turtle and jellyfish courtesy of Wikimedia user Brocken Inaglory

·       Photo of a drinking swallow courtesy of Wikimedia user Sanchezn

·       Photo of elephants courtesy of Derek Keats (Johannesburg, South Africa)

·       Taurus constellation drawing from Firmamentum Sobiescianum sive Uranographia by Johannes Hevelius, courtesy of the United States Naval Observatory

·       Exoplanet illustrations courtesy of ESO

·       Ariane 5 rocket launch image ©2008 ESA – CNES – Arianespace/Photo by Optique Video CSG

·       JWST animation and illustrations courtesy of G. Bacon (STScI)

·       JWST deployment animation courtesy of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center and Northrop Grumman

·       Hubble Space Telescope animations courtesy of ESA/Hubble (M. Kornmesser & L. L. Christensen)

·       Illustration of K2 fields based on image courtesy of ESO/S. Brunier/NASA Kepler Mission/Wendy Stenzel

·       TESS animation courtesy of Chester Beals (MIT Lincoln Laboratory) and George Ricker (MIT)

·       Animation of planetary orbits around Milky Way stars courtesy of ESO/M. Kornmesser

·       Prism animation courtesy of ESO/L. Calçada

·       Spectrum illustration courtesy of M. Lussier (STScI)

·       Artwork depicting water on the surfaces of other worlds courtesy of Dan Durda (Fellow, IAAA)

·       Spectral line illustrations courtesy of A. Feild (STScI) and the European Space Agency

 

 

Written by Tracy Vogel

Designed by Marc Lussier

Music courtesy of Associated Production Music

 

 

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(DESCRIPTION)
A black and white picture of a minotaur in the top left. A color picture of a planet and sun in the top right.

Text, MYTH versus REALITY

Myth side

Text, Earth-size planets are rare.

Reality side

Text, Astronomers estimate that roughly one in five Sun-like stars have Earth-size planets located in the "habitable zone," where water can exist as a liquid. Whether these planets are actually habitable or inhabited, however, remains a mystery. Both Venus and Mars are in the Sun’s habitable zone, but are not currently habitable.