Billions of habitable planets in Milky Way

By scouring millions of stars in the night sky over six years, researchers found that the majority of the 100 billion stars in the Milky Way have planets similar to Earth or Mercury, Venus or Mars, the other similar planets in our solar system.
They estimated that in our galaxy there are about 10 billion stars with planets in the "habitable zone" – the distance from the star where solid planets can be found – many of which could in theory be capable of supporting life.
Dr Martin Dominik, a German research fellow at St Andrews University, said: "Even if life existed on only one planet in each galaxy there would still be 100 billion in the universe.

www.telegraph.co.uk...

Exciting news, while 'obvious' to some it has finally been confirmed using the scientific method and is backed up by data.

Dr Martin Dominik, a German research fellow at St Andrews University, said: "Even if life existed on only one planet in each galaxy there would still be 100 billion in the universe.
"We still don't have the evidence of life on another planet, and we could be unique, but confronted with these numbers it seems highly unlikely.
"There are a small number of planets which we think could harbour life, a small number of candidates with what we believe might be the right conditions."

While many already suspect this anyway, even if for the wrong reasons, it's always been a dream of mine since childhood to see scientific evidence come to light that we are not alone in the universe. While there is still no direct confirmation of extra-terrestrial life, at least now we're a number of steps closer than when I was a child.

What was once thought of as fiction is strongly becoming our reality. I will not likely know in our lifetime but I can only hope. We (humans) are spread out through out this universe. Life was brought to Earth at one point or another just like it was brought to other "habitable" planets. This is the only thing good about growing old!

Thanks for posting this.

I just heard this on AM talk radio during a news update.

It was just a few years ago that we were sure our star was the only one with planets, a few years before that we were sure that flying machines were impossible, a few more years back we were sure the Earth was flat. I am a believer in the idea of the plurality of worlds. This idea is that there are numerous worlds out there just like ours or very similar with people like us or similar to us. Some of our founding fathers shared this same belief long before it was popular in pop culture. See the link below for more details.

en.wikipedia.org...

I am curious about what kind of Boots he would be wearing on this Billion or so planets...


Sorry I see Dr. Martin and automatically that is in my head...that and the song of Alexia

Sorry for the detract nice post and yes there are Billions and Billions as my hero would say!

yes life is abundant throughout the universe.
the ancients have 5 billion planets prepared for life in our quarter of the galaxy alone. Earth is just a potting shed for the seedlings and the ancients will redistribute everyone soon, soon as we have increased our radiation immunity. Welcome to the magic of the cosmos.

P.s. I know all this because I have a just made it up..

reply to post by AgentSmith


So they looked at millions of stars and concluded that 100 billion stars have planets in the habitable zone.

It looks just like statistics, useless in cases like this (and I do love statistics ).

And those are just the planets where we believe life could exist , there is already a belief that the Goldilocks zone should be expanded around Red dwarf stars , which are believed to make up about 80 per cent of the stars in our galaxy alone .
When you take into account habitable Moons around gas giant planets the Galaxy / Universe could be a very busy place filed with all manor of civilizations .
Shame were to busy killing each other to go out there and play

reply to post by ArMaP


Stats spelled backwards is stats.

Meaningless in proving reality because they can be read more ways than one to support anything. Cherry picking comes to mind. Incomplete statistical translations also. Single source or single purpose stats applications is another. Omission of unwanted stats is yet the most obvious culprit to learning. Apparently one never learned anything the second time the mule kicked them in the head.

reply to post by AgentSmith


From the telegraph site you linked to they have found around a thousand planets with so far, 2 that might be suitable for life not a good hit rate!

Of course I have always thought we can't simply be the only planet that humans can inhabit. BUT, until I travel there and breath in the air and eat from the land this is still a theory at best.

Yeah, yeah, billions of habitable planets in the Miky Way...Carl Sagan drilled that into the common mind already about twenty years ago with the Drake equation. (Since enlarged upon in the numbers.)

But he was extremely quick to say, not to worry, all of those poor folks out there couldn't ever get here to make our acquaintance. And, oh, by the way, UFOs aren't what they seem to be, alien ships.