Study: Milky Way may have billions of potentially Earth-like planets
Posted: Tue, Nov 5, 2013, 5:45 AM ET (1045 GMT)
More than 20 percent of the Sun-like stars in the Milky Way galaxy may have Earth-sized planets orbiting in those stars' habitable zones, astronomers announced Monday. An analysis of Kepler data by a team at the University of California Berkeley detected 10 potentially Earth-like planets, based on their size and amount of starlight they receive, in a sample of 42,000 stars. Correcting for observing geometry and stellar variability to account for planets Kepler can't detect, the team concluded that about 22 percent of Sun-like stars have such planets in their habitable zones, or billions of such planets in the Milky Way alone. While such planets could potentially be hospitable to life, scientists note they don't have the ability to determine which ones are, in fact, habitable.
More than 20 percent of the Sun-like stars in the Milky Way galaxy may have Earth-sized planets orbiting in those stars' habitable zones, astronomers announced Monday. An analysis of Kepler data by a team at the University of California Berkeley detected 10 potentially Earth-like planets, based on their size and amount of starlight they receive, in a sample of 42,000 stars. Correcting for observing geometry and stellar variability to account for planets Kepler can't detect, the team concluded that about 22 percent of Sun-like stars have such planets in their habitable zones, or billions of such planets in the Milky Way alone. While such planets could potentially be hospitable to life, scientists note they don't have the ability to determine which ones are, in fact, habitable.
Related Links:
| <<previous article | next article>> |
|
news in brief
|
|
|
|
news links
|
|
Sunday, October 19
Greedy black hole feeds via two spiral arms
Netherlands Research School for Astronomy — 12:39 pm ET (1639 GMT) Kymeta Selected As Multi-Orbit SATCOM Provider For U.S. Army’s NGC2 Pilot
Kymeta — 12:37 pm ET (1637 GMT) Solstar Space Signs $15 Million Global Agreement with Momentus
Solstar Space Co. — 12:36 pm ET (1636 GMT) ANT61 Signs LOI with Lumir
Space and Defense — 12:36 pm ET (1636 GMT) TracPlus and OroraTech Launch First-of-Its-Kind Two-Way Data Integration to Accelerate Wildfire Decision-Making
OroraTech — 12:35 pm ET (1635 GMT) |
