Aliens watching us? Scientists spot 1,000 nearby stars where E.T. could detect life on Earth space.com

Astronomers have found most of the more than 4,000 exoplanets discovered to date with the "transit method," which detects the tiny brightness dips caused when an orbiting world crosses its host star's face from the observer's perspective. This strategy was used to great effect by NASA's pioneering Kepler space telescope and is currently being employed by its successor, the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS).