Earth to...Earth? Are you there?

jasamaman writes "So far all the planets found outside our solar system have been gas giants. So they are not habitable, and couldn't really hold life as we know it. But "planet hunter" David Charbonneau is looking for another planet just like Earth, and claims that astronomers are "very close"."

Comments

Re:How does he know?

[CrazyDwarf]

I'm glad you posted the section you did here, as I didn't remember his exact words (and I can sometimes be a stickler for comparing what he said to what people think he said.) It says, "We are close to being able to find Earth-like planets." He doesn't say we're close to finding one, just that we're close to being able to find one. That's quite a big difference, especially when you consider that space is mostly empty. It could be 20 years after we are able to find one that we actually do.

Just to kind of explain that to some of our slower readers... and this is in no way accurate, but just an example to help understand... if putting a coke bottle on the end of a telescope enables us to detect Earth-like planets, then we still have to search the skies with that telescope. That could take a long time, with the vastness of space.