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A Third of Sun-Like Stars May Have Warm Earth Analogs

Posted by timothy on from the where-do-you-think-the-off-world-colonies-are? dept.

The Bad Astronomer writes "An astronomer studying data from the first 136 days of the Kepler observatory missions has calculated that as many as 34% of all Sun-like stars (abstract) may have Earth-sized planets orbiting in their habitable zones, where conditions are right for life as we know it. I have some reservations with his numbers, but they do match other studies. There may be 15 billion warm, Earth-sized worlds in our galaxy alone."

1 of 188 comments (clear)

  1. Re:And what proportion of stars are sun-like? by Macharius · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Given a population of 200-400 billion stars in the Mikly Way, 7.6% are similar to ours for 15-30 billion stars... 1/3 of which would be 5-10 billion stars purportedly hosting planets capable of supporting life as we know it.