One of the really fun things about hunting for exoplanets is all the surprises.

Before we found any worlds around other stars, we only knew our solar system.

So when we came up with ideas of what other solar systems would look like, they very closely resembled ours.

All of our theoretical models for how planets form were designed

to recreate the solar system. If your model created something completely different, then

you threw it away because it didn't create the solar system when we knew the solar system

existed. But when we went out there, we have found anything but.

We have found all of these other configurations of planets, big planets right next to their star,

chains of small planets all packed really closely together, systems where they're all misaligned with each other.

So it's been really, really exciting to just kind of see how much more imaginative nature is than we are.

We think almost every star in the galaxy has at least one planet around it.

Which is incredible because there are a hundred billion stars in our galaxy.

Just imagine how many worlds that is out there and how much potential that is.

This is NASA's curious universe. Our universe is a wild and wonderful place. I'm Patty Boyd, and in this podcast, NASA is your tour guide.

Today, we're taking you outside our solar system and into the planets that lie beyond.

Exoplanets.

There are eight planets in our solar system.

Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune.

But in the last few decades, scientists have discovered thousands of planets outside our solar system.

We call them exoplanets, and evidence suggests that there might be hundreds of

millions of them in the Milky Way. So far, planet hunters have discovered and named over 4,000

worlds within our galaxy. When I'm not hosting this podcast, this is what I study the most,

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