Discoveries of Extraterrestrial Planets in 2022 So far have been breathtaking

Exoplanets are alien worlds beyond our solar system, and NASA has confirmed more than 5,000 of them as of 2022. Among them are distant planets, including (perhaps rocky) super-Earths, giants like Jupiter, 'ice giants' like Neptune, and others. 

The Milky Way galaxy alone contains more than a trillion extraterrestrial worlds, despite planetary scientists finding thousands of them.

Scientists will soon be able to peer into the atmospheres of several of these planets with the James Webb Space Telescope, the most powerful telescope of its type ever built. Several of the most fascinating discoveries made so far in 2022 have been found in extreme worlds.

The Kepler telescope, one of NASA's most renowned instruments, identifies distant exoplanets by observing the brightness of distant stars through specialized telescopes. A planet passing in front of that star.

Exoplanets' atmospheres can sometimes be observed. The cooler side of WASP-121 b, an exoplanet some 855 light-years away, is likely to harbor airborne metals and gems. Magnesium, iron, vanadium, chromium, and nickel can condense into clouds in the high atmosphere because it is so cool.

Imagine metallic clouds. How might they look? Observing clouds like these up close in our solar system isn't possible due to complicated cloud formation and lack of clouds like these,' Thomas Mikal-Evans, an astronomer at the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy and a lead author of the research, told Mashable.

The extraterrestrial clouds might resemble dust storms on Earth, I have speculated. They could be red clouds or blue clouds. Others could be gray or green.

Additionally, sometimes the clouds condense further into droplets, resulting in gems falling from the sky. The majority of planets on the surface of the solar system are spherical. Except for WASP-103b.

The Cheops space telescope of the European Space Agency (ESA) has found that WASP-103-b is a planet twice the size of Jupiter that orbits its star in a day. Tugs on the planet are much more intense than what the moon does to Earth's tides. Ultimately, this tugging has deformed the planet.

As the planet passed in front of its star, the Cheops satellite was able to observe its odd shape. 'Observing transit light curves of exoplanets is very rare due to tidal deformation, but Cheops' high precision makes this possible,' said Kate Isaak, the project scientist for Cheops at ESA.

A 'super Neptune' (meaning a planet slightly larger than Neptune) has been found 150 light-years from Earth. That's pretty rare. NASA writes that TOI-674 b is 'nearby' in astronomical terms at 150 light-years, which is one reason scientists can learn about its chemical makeup.

The space agency noted that there remain many unanswered questions, such as how much water vapor is present in its atmosphere. TOI-674 b's atmosphere, however, is far easier to observe than those of many exoplanets, so it would make an ideal target for investigation.'

The James Webb telescope, which will return its first cosmic images in July 2022, might get a closer look at the atmosphere of this exoplanet. Astronomers discovered a giant exoplanet called AB Aurigae b that is still forming.

Hubble's over 30-year-old telescope imaged the planet, which is developing within a turbulent disk of gas and dust, called a protoplanetary disk. Stars in nascent solar systems are just 2 million years old. 

Compared to the old planet, the new planet is a giant. The size of the new planet is estimated to be nine times that of Jupiter. As for its distance from its star, it is about 8.6 billion miles away, and it revolves about it at a very great distance. This distance is more than twice as far as Pluto is from the sun.

Researchers believe that AB Aurigae b may not have formed when a cooled disc of the planet separated into large, hot objects like most planets. Instead, the researchers think that AB Aurigae b may have formed when a cooled disk of the planet broke up into fragments.