As 2017 comes to a close, it does so in the realm of exoplanet research having answered two very important questions that previous years had raised. At the beginning of the year, our solar system appeared unique in terms of the sheer number of planets present, the number of planets orbiting within the habitable zone of a single star, and the fact that our four terrestrial planets are segregated in closer orbits to the sun than those of the four gas and ice giants. We now end 2017 knowing that our solar system is not unique in any of those categories.
