The Strange Case Of The Planet That Shouldn't Be There
 Historically, the quest to find the holy grail of planets in orbit around stars beyond our Sun, proved to be a difficult endeavor. The discovery of the first exoplanet, circling a Sun-like star, happened a generation ago, and it certainly stands as one of humanity's greatest accomplishments . Discovering a giant exoplanet can be likened to observing light bouncing off the wings of a flying moth fluttering near the 1,000-watt light-bulb of a glowing street lamp--when the observer is 10 miles away. One half of the Nobel Prize in Physics 2019 was awarded jointly to Michel Mayor and Didier Queloz "for the discovery of an exoplanet orbiting a solar-type star." Some of the exoplanets discovered since then resemble the planets inhabiting our own Solar System, while others have been proven to be genuine oddballs--so different from our Sun's family of planets that they defied the wildest dreams of planet-hunting astronomers before their discovery. In September 2019, Spanish a...
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