Tracy Drain

So the scientists have to be very careful and figure that out.

But it was looking at a field of over 100,000 stars all at once in its field of view and then measuring the brightness of the light and that dipping.

And over its mission, Kepler has discovered, oh my gosh, it's been a while since I've looked at the numbers here, but a little bit under 3,000 confirmed planets.

That many?

That many.

And here's the thing that's amazing about that.

If you were to go outside in the night sky, hold your hand up.

The area that Kepler was looking at was about the size of the palm of your hand against the night sky.

And so if scientists can then extrapolate from the planets that it found, you estimate that there's probably 100 to 200 billion stars with planets in our galaxy alone.

Right.

Unfortunately, Kepler cannot detect those.

Those are rogue planets.

And when they studied in school and then read articles later about how solar systems form, sometimes the structure of them can be a little bit fragile when you're arranging them.

There's a game out there, I can't remember the name of it, where you could try to build your own solar system.

And you can set the mass of the star, you can set the mass of the planets, you can try to put them at different distances.

And you'll find that it can be a little challenging to put them in places that are stable.

And if the planets go, you know, too close or the wrong angle from the sun, they just get like flying out like they're doing their own little gravity assist.

And that's where these rogue planets come from.

They're just out there doing their thing.

Again, me, engineer, not scientist.