As long as there have been humans there have been humans looking upward at the heavens and being awed. And for most of the universe being billions of miles away from us, we know remarkable things about it.

But in general, the universe we live in is a mystery. For example, there are nine planets, I refuse to not count Pluto, that orbit our sun; this would suggest that planets are quite common. However, the first confirmed exoplanet, or planet outside our solar system, was not discovered until 1992.

The problem with exoplanets is that they do not give off light, or give off so little light it is not detectable. So the genius astrophysicists who have nothing else to do with their lives had to figure out a different way to find them. Being the geniuses they are, they came up with a few brilliant ideas that actually work.

The first and most reliable method: They look at a star and if a planet is rotating around the star it can actually slightly affect the star’s radial velocity. From earth we can detect these small displacements due to the Doppler Effect. Perturbations as small as 1 meter per second can be observed, this is only 2.24 mph.

The second method of detection is often referred to as “Transit Method.” Once again the magical astronomers and astrophysicists look at the star and wait for the stars brightness to dim slightly. Computers detect and record this, human eyes aren’t good enough, yet.

These slight changes of the star’s brightness are exoplanets orbiting in front of its parent star and blocking some of its light. This is apparently a less precise method because sometimes stars randomly dim for other reasons. Silly stars.

There are some other methods too, but I think you guys get the idea. They’re “science-y” and “math-y” and fairly spectacular.

To date, more than 529 exoplanets have been confirmed from these methods. But the craziness doesn’t stop there.

Based on the small discrepancies in the radial velocities of the stars and the patterns of the star’s light dimming the experts can tell more than just that a planet exists. They can tell us things like: how big the planet is; how much mass the planet has; how far away from the star it is; whether the planet is gaseous or terrestrial; the temperature and composition of the planet, these crazy cats can even sometimes analyze the atmospheres of these exoplanets.

And these people refuse to stop there. They’re grouping these exoplanets into categories; trying to figure out which ones might be habitable, which ones might have life. They exemplify everything that has made us human for hundreds of years. They have the human drive to discover, to be unsatisfied with not knowing, to use human ingenuity to solve the questions, to continue to look forward and pave the stones for a future of potential exploration.

To sate their intellectual yearnings, the James Webb Space Telescope, has been designed and will be launched within the next three to four years. It will be launched from a rocket, and in order to fit inside the rocket they use what I like to think of as the tampon method, mostly for comical reasons.

You see they have to fold the telescope up real nice and tight to get it to fight inside the rocket, but then when it gets to space, then “whoosh.” It just pops out and springs back to its useful size and shape. The telescope has a few main goals: discover more about the Big Bang Theory and how the universe was created; understand the formation of galaxies and star systems; look for more life and investigate exoplanets.

Currently we have no way to get to all of these planets. But as soon as my side of the table — aerospace engineers — start picking up the slack and figure out that small issue, the astronomers and astrophysicists will be ready and waiting to hand us a list of places to go to.

So whether your level of maturity warrants the catchphrase, “To Infinity and Beyond,” or you’re at a, “Boldly Go Where No Man has Gone Before” level, you can thank those awesome people looking up at the skies and their unbelievable genius for figuring out what infinity might hold for us.