25 years of exoplanet hunting hasn't revealed Earth 2.0 — but is that what we're looking for?

A ton of exoplanets, many of them resembling Earth, are illustrated in front of a black screen. On the top right, there's a Space.com anniversary badge.

When Space.com opened its doors to the world on July 20, 1999, humanity knew about fewer than 30 exoplanets. Today, as you read this article, that number shoots well beyond 5,000. 

If you'd believe it, the first worlds beyond our own were confirmed only about seven years before this website's first article was christened; they were orbs anchored around a spinning neutron star named PSR B1257+12 (more on that in a moment). As for the headline of our first article, however? Well, we may never know. It would appear it was lost to time — a mysterious server fire destroyed our records of it, and The Wayback Machine is not coming to our rescue. If anyone can locate it, you know where to find me.