Secular Café: 10 Billion Earth-Like Planets May Exist in Our Galaxy

Secular Café Serious discussion of science, skepticism, evolution, pseudoscience, and the paranormal

10 Billion Earth-Like Planets May Exist in Our Galaxy Mar 28th 2012, 17:56 http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/20...illion-earths/ Quote: About 40 percent of red dwarf stars may have Earth-sized planets orbiting them that have the right conditions for life. Red dwarfs – which are smaller and cooler than our sun – are extremely common, making up 80 percent of stars in the galaxy. Their ubiquity suggests that there are tens of billions of possible places to look for life beyond Earth, with at least 100 such planets located nearby. The new estimate comes from a team of astronomers using the European Southern Observatory's HARPS planet-hunting telescope to look at a sample of 102 nearby red dwarfs over a six-year period. The telescope checked for a characteristic wobble from the star, indicating that at least one planet was tugging on it while orbiting around. cont... (Not loaded: TZUSAzRJPnY) :D

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