T ime was, there were only nine known planets in the entire universe—the gaggle of worlds that orbit our sun. That local number was reduced to eight in 2006, when the International Astronomical Union busted Pluto down to a dwarf planet.
The majority of the discoveries were made by the Kepler Space Telescope. Launched in 2009, it hunts for planets using the so-called transit method—looking for the slight dimming in light that occurs when an orbiting planet briefly blocks the light from the star.
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