New Estimate for Alien Earths: 2 Billion in Our Galaxy Alone

If you're ever looking to help out with the Kepler Project pay a visit to PlanetHunters.org

From what i've seen in the Data Earth sized planets are not as common as Neptune Sized planets but the data set we are seeing is only the first 2months of data collected and released. So this is just the tip of the Iceberg.

I can't wait for them to released the Data set of the first year when they analyze it all then we are going to see some real numbers. With the amount of Planets they have found that are relatively the size of Earth i would say its safe to say there are many Ice/ Desert/ Ocean Type Earths, Super Earths, Or mars sized planets that are out there and may support life to. For anyone new to the thread read back a few pages on what types of planets i believe may be able to sustain some forms of life.

I thought red dwarfs and red giatns and whatnot are just old stars? Our own sun will be a red giant someday. I recall reading that our galaxy is old and has a lot of red giants/dwarfs because of that. So red dwarfs were ALWAYS that way and never sunlike? Someone can tell me?

I tend to agree with caf1550, and yeti101, that the majority of the solar systems, from the center of our sprial galaxy, outward to a certain radius is largely uninhabitable to a certain degree due to cosmic radiation.[ According to Scientific American magazine.]

Therefore, I figure that the number of 2 billion Earth type planets or any other habitable planet in our galaxy is vastly overestimated.

I believe that the majority of humanoid civilizations live in the outer sprial arms of our galaxy, about the same radius as our Earth is from the center of our galaxy.

reply to post by Erno86


I think this is true i read it somewhere that in the center where 80% of the stars in the galaxy are may be uninhabitable because of the increased cosmic radiation but who knows maybe life can form under heavy cosmic radiation who are we to say this when we have no idea what conditions life can form in we haven't searched our own solar system for life yet except mars/moon

You think life only exists in the radius center from the middle where we are? You know the galaxy is 100,000 light years across approx and we are 50,000 out approx so what about the outer 50,000?LY's and the inner 20,000 or so before we get to the so called possibly uninhabitable zone where there might be too much cosmic radiation.?
Still were talking about 100's of billions of stars in these outer regions i'd say 2 billion earth like planets may be a conservative estimate.

reply to post by jonnywhite


Red Dwarfs have always been that way i am sure they last for billions of years i think actually hundreds of billions so red dwarfs would be the best candidate to move to if you want your civilization to last literally 'forever'