Answer 1:
Well, no one knows the answer to this question
for sure - since stars are so much brighter than
planets, it turns out that it's really hard to see
planets directly because the light from their sun
swarms any light they might be reflecting back at
us (well, besides the planets in our own solar
system, obviously!). But recently, NASA launched
a space telescope designed to try to find as many
planets around other stars as it could. So far,
it's found tons! I'm not an expert on this, but
the last I heard, it had found around seven
hundred planets or so. But those are just the
planets closest to us, and the ones that are most
visible; based on that number, if you try to
estimate how many solar systems there are in the
Milky Way, it turns out there might be as many as
100 BILLION solar systems in our own galaxy! Keep
in mind that there are something like 300 billion
stars in total, so it's possible that a good chunk
of the stars you see in the sky have their own
solar system!
I hope these help!
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