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One In Five Sun-Like Stars May Have an Earth-Like Planet
The Bad Astronomer writes "A new study, looking at over 40,000 stars viewed by the Kepler spacecraft, indicates that 22% of stars like the Sun should have Earth-like planets orbiting them — planets that are similar in size to our home world and with a surface temperature hospitable for liquid water. There are some caveats (they don't include atmospheric issues like the greenhouse effect, which may reduce the overall number, or at cooler stars where there may be many more such planets) but their numbers indicate there could be several billion planets similar to Earth in the Milky Way alone."
Unless, of course, y'know, we don't know everything there is to know about physics.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
If we traveled at 10% the speed of light (fast but not requiring a breakthrough in fundamental physics), and built new exploration ships at each destination we colonize, it would only take a half a million years to colonize every single star in the Milky Way (source). That's an absolute eyeblink in comparison to the age of our galaxy. I don't think it will be long before we can launch ships that could reproduce themselves and keep colonizing. Our children's generation will be investing serious research money in AI robotic systems that do asteroid mining, smelting and refining of ores. Once we get a workable .1c spaceship design, I'm sure we'll have robots that could build the things in space, from materials harvested in space. I don't think we're talking about some sci-fi fantasy land. I think we're talking about the foreseeable future. And all this invites the question: if we're so far along the process to colonizing the galaxy, why haven't one of the countless probable civilizations beaten us to it? Or if they had, why is there no trace of their colonies? That's at the core of the Fermi paradox.