Exoplanet
[EKS-oh-plan-ət]
Part of speech: noun
Origin: Ancient Greek, 1990s
1.
A planet that orbits a star outside the solar system.
Examples of Exoplanet in a sentence
"You will need an instrument much stronger than your backyard telescope to see an exoplanet."
"Astronomers have discovered thousands of exoplanets outside the Milky Way."
About Exoplanet
As technology and science advances, so must the language used to describe it. The term "exoplanet" has only been in common use since the 1990s, when discoveries of such planets were made, but the term comes from Greek. "Exo" means "outside" and "planḗtai" means "wandering star."
Did you Know?
The first confirmed exoplanet was discovered by Canadian astronomers in 1988, but scholars have suspected these worlds for hundreds of years. Giordano Bruno, an Italian philosopher, was an early supporter of the theory that Earth revolves around the sun, and he speculated that the stars in the sky were accompanied by similar planets.
