The first confirmation of an exoplanet (a planet outside our solar system) was in 1992. Just 30 years ago. That planet was initially detected in 1988. Just 34 years ago. In 2022, the latest count I’ve seen shows 5,157 planets! The furthest discovered exoplanets from Earth are SWEEPS-4 and SWEEPS-11 and are floating around in space approximately 27,710 lightyears (ly) away. Measured in astronomical units (AUs) - the average distance between Earth and the Sun - these two planets are 1,752,410,881 AUs.

That’s far. That is incomprehensibly far. Three out of five times I visit my parents, I feel like it took either “longer than expected” or “shorter than expected.” If I can’t conceptualize a trip to my parents, then the SWEEPS planets are a bit beyond me.

The closes exoplanet is Proxima Centauri b, at only 4.2 ly away. That’s not so bad. But The most Earth-like world we’ve found so far is Kepler-452b, 1402 ly away. The planet itself is a bit larger than Earth, with a radius of about 1.5 that of Earth’s, and it orbits just barely further from its sun than we do from ours, at 1.04 AU. Based on its small radius compared to many other exoplanets, scientists predict that Kepler-452b is a rocky planet (like Earth). Additionally, because of its location within what is known as the “habitable zone” - the zone within which we predict water can pool and life can exist - there may be life. However, Kepler-452b does receive more energy from its star, so whether it can sustain life isn’t entirely known.

I know the image above is just a rendering, but the possibilities of what could be on this planet blow my mind. What if there is life on Kepler-452b? What sorts of animals, insects, and fauna fill that world? Is it full of life or does it feel like Craters of the Moon, a wasteland with hard-to-find and sheltered life? Do reptiles rule, or is it a period of mammalian dominance? What are the differences in basic structures? Are plant cell walls thicker to account for the added gravity? What sort of diversity is there in different regions? What species are the apex predators? Most importantly, do they have a more affordable housing market?

Or…is there nothing?

We don’t know, but we’re getting closer to knowing.

This section title was supposed to be a riff on the nautical term “Land ho,” which denotes the sighting of land…but it just makes me think of the kid in middle school who forced everyone to queue up while they drank from the water fountain for 2 minutes straight…

…but really, we found water! I say “we” like I had something to do with it, but what I mean is that the super intelligent humans who developed the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) found water. The JWST aimed its hardware toward the Phoenix constellation for 6.4 hours on June 21 and measured the light it received from the star of the WASP-96 system as a gas giant exoplanet (WASP-96 b) passed between the telescope and the WASP-96 system’s star. Tiny changes in light were detected. These changes were caused by specific molecules (H20, CO2, etc.) in the exoplanet’s atmosphere blocking light from the system’s star. In this case, specific light colors were blocked, indicating that water (H2O) is present in the planet’s atmosphere.

So, water ho!

The result of the JWST’s look at WASP-96 b is below. JWST’s Near-Infrared Imager and Slitless Spectrograph (NIRISS) found clear indications of H2O in WASP-96 b’s atmosphere. While this exoplanet isn’t a good specimen for extraterrestrial life - on account of it being all gas and super hot - it was a good test of the capabilities of the NIRISS. In the future, this technology may be able to peer into the atmospheres of potentially life-bearing planets and see signs of gases in the atmosphere such as H2O, CO2, oxygen, and methane that could represent a biosignature - an indication that life exists.

Personally, this is mind-blowing. I get giddy thinking about it. I know space may not be everyone’s jam, so I want those of you who aren’t space nerds to know that I feel you, I hear you, and I’ll try (I really will) to resist writing another space newsletter next time.

For those of us who are space nerds - I’m including those, like me, who lean toward being wannabe space nerds - the JWST is like an endless source of the craziest s*** I’ve ever seen.

So far, JWST has given us images of what is likely the oldest galaxy so far - oddly enough, because of how long the light took to get this far, the image captured is an image of one of the youngest galaxies we’ve ever seen. It has also provided us images of a grouping of galaxies known as Stephan’s Quintet, a star nursery known as the Carina nebula, and gas clouds being expelled from a star in the Southern Ring nebula. Still to come in Webb’s slate of 13 Early Release Science Programs are studies on black holes, intergalactic space, and several on the evolution of stars.

If you want some more in-depth but still very accessible information on the discovery of water on WASP-96 b, Cleo Abram did an awesome video about it.

If you’re interested in exoplanets/space, these are two of the best visuals I’ve seen. First is the NASA Exoplanet Explorer which lets you move through 3D space and see where all the known exoplanets are compared to Earth. I have spent so much time on this.

The second is an editable all-sky chart with loads of incredible things on it. Honestly, just check out this guy’s whole website. It’s amazing what he’s put together.

This week I kinda went hard on just watching one single individual’s stories almost religiously. Money with Katie is an awesome podcast/newsletter/blog on the subject of personal finance. I know, I know. There are a million personal finance influencers out there, but trust me, this one is quality. She’s given advice that my wife and I have actually decided to use and it has been wonderful. go check her out.

This last week she got on a bit of a completely justified rant about the gender pay gap, wealth inequality, universal healthcare, social safety nets, and government-funded childcare. And I was so there for it. I think you know the flavor of stuff I’m talking about. It’s the sort of stuff that can easily get you labeled as a socialist in certain circles…even though it, well, isn’t?

I’ll probably do a longer newsletter section on all this later, so the short version is that we can do so much better than we currently are at taking care of one another in this country. Our wealthy are too wealthy. Our political leaders are on average very poor representatives of the average American. And I’m all for childcare being seen as infrastructure - and yes, even if I have to pay more in taxes.

I’m going to come back to all this later and flesh out the details, so for now I’ll just leave you with this disheartening (sorry) graph showing how the rich get rich and the rest of us…don’t quite keep up with inflation.

After a family member recommended this book to me multiple times, my wife started reading it. And then I started reading it after being told repeatedly that it was incredible and now I cannot put it down it is so good my gosh.

Wool, by Hugh Howey, has been absolutely captivating. I literally cannot tell you anything for fear of becoming a spoilerer. But please, I am begging you, read this book.