I get what you mean but there’s almost 6,000 exoplanets in NASA’s catalog so one imagines it isn’t as huge of a deal to find a new one as it would have been when say, Hubble was new. To that end it presumably happens often enough that you wouldn’t get the meme’s scenario of a 50 year career vet getting all spiteful because a kid beat him to the punch.
They even have had surveys on citizen science sites like zooniverse where any of us could evaluate data from stars looking for the dips that could signify a potential planet. It’s all very cool, but I kind agree with all the data and technology we have now it’s way easier to find new ones.
Zooniverse is a very cool website for citizen science! For anyone interested: https://www.zooniverse.org/projects/mschwamb/planet-hunters-ngts
