Study Estimates 100 Billion Planets In the Milky Way Galaxy

The Bad Astronomer writes "A new study finds that there may be 100 billion alien planets in the Milky Way alone, with 17 billion of them the size of Earth. Announcements like this have been made before, but this new research is more robust than previous studies, using data from the Kepler planet-hunting spacecraft over a longer period and analyzing it in a more statistically solid way (PDF). They also found that smaller planets are not as picky about their host stars, with terrestrial planets forming around stars like the Sun or as small as tiny, cool red dwarfs with equal ease."

Comments

Alien?

[DarthVain]

So are they saying there is 100,000,000,001 total planets? Thats some accuracy!

Are planets in our Solar System "Alien" or are we claiming ownership over them?

I think they just wanted to use Alien in the summary.

Re:"100 billion alien planets"

[Anonymous Coward]

640k ought to be enough for anybody.

Figures

[arcite]

100 billion planets and I have to be stuck on this one.

Re:Figures

[Eddy_D]

Your only hope is to start hanging around in English bars and keeping an eye out for a weird looking dude carrying a towel.