"Results from all three methods of detecting planets, including micro-sanding, all point to one result, not only that planets are common in the galaxy, but also that there are more small planets than large ones." says the chief researcher on behalf of NASA in a study published on Thursday in Nature
Our Milky Way galaxy contains at least 100 billion planets. This is according to a detailed statistical study based on three means of identifying planets outside our solar system.
The discovery, published in the January 12 issue of the journal Nature, was made by an international team of astronomers, led by Stephen Kane of NASA's Exoplanet Institute at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, California.
The survey results show that our galaxy contains, on average, at least one planet for every star (Sun). This means that there are likely at least 1,500 planets within a radius of 50 light years from Earth.
The research is based on observations that spanned six years by Probing (a network of probes that looks for anomalies through dusting), a project carried out in international cooperation, using a technique known as microlensing, with the aim of scanning the galaxy in search of planets. In this method, one star acts as a magnifying glass and amplifies the light from the star in the background. If planets are orbiting the foreground star, the background star's light will increase in brightness, revealing the presence of this planet whose light is otherwise too faint to be seen.
The study also states that there are many more Earth-sized planets than Jupiter-sized gaseous worlds. A rough survey estimate indicates the existence of over 10 billion terrestrial planets throughout our galaxy.
"Results from all three methods of detecting planets, including micro-sanding, all point to one result, not only that planets are common in the galaxy, but also that there are more small planets than large ones." says Steven Kane, principal investigator, from NASA's Extrasolar Planet Science Center at Caltech. "This is encouraging news for the study of habitable planets."
For an article on the website of the Hubble Space Telescope Scientific Center
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The amusing part is that until not many years ago, there were many who estimated that there were no planets in the universe at all....
I have absolutely no doubt that the universe is infested with life and the reason for my assumption is from the only sample we have, our solar system. ZA, apparently there can be life on at least 11% of the planets according to local statistics. (The percentages may be higher, finding life on Jupiter's moons cannot be ruled out, such as the likelihood that there is a water ocean on Europa's moon, etc.).
Unfortunately (or perhaps fortunately, if we are afraid of the existence of extraterrestrials, certainly those who are technologically capable of visiting us...) we live in a remote corner of a very large galaxy and the speed of light is a very problematic barrier, due to the unimaginable distances and therefore at this stage we are unable to discover life on other stars. Obviously it's only a matter of time.
Well, according to Wikipedia the highest speed was actually achieved by the HELIOS 2 probe that was launched to study the sun. It reached a speed of 252,792 km/h or 70 km/second.
New Horizons is in second place with 58,536 km/h or 16.26 km/second.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_vehicle_speed_records#Spacecraft
There are probably on the order of a trillion planets, some of which are not even trapped in a solar system
Idush is not a mature enough technique to reach accurate estimates, they gave you a lower limit and not an order of magnitude
Inaccurate estimates are that there are 100K to 10 million stars identical to Eretz
Zadok I completely disagree with you,
Nature is a rich, creative, complex and simple world.. In my eyes, studying it, understanding it, and cracking its riddles can give satisfaction, and happiness like no other.
Speaking of propulsion systems, does anyone know what is going on with the development of the plasma based rocket engine?
The time has come to refresh the Drake equation: fp=1
When will the Kepler mission have enough data to statistically estimate the number of Earth-like planets? How many stars do you have to scan to get an answer to that?
It's just a shame that what makes us so smart does nothing to make us a little happier.
1. The fastest vehicle is Voyager 1 and not New Horizons which (Voyager) reached almost 18 billion kilometers and a speed of about 61 thousand kilometers per hour and passed the 120 units or so...
New Horizons recently became the closest human vessel (about 23 units from us) to Pluto more than any other spacecraft...
21 km per second It happened that he reached Jupiter and then reached a speed of about 25 km per second
But without any external force, Voyager 1 is the fastest...
It is possible to move faster and there are scientists who are trying to do this
They discovered three planets smaller than Earth in the star koi-961
One of them is almost the size of Mars and only 130 light years away...
The closest planet to us that they discovered is about 8 light years away, followed by about 10 light years...
And as for the creator of the world, it is not a problem for him to take care of this whole universe...
Cassiopeia: This is a grossly inaccurate quote from Carl Sagan. Even he only said it was very, very likely but he didn't say it was certain.
intergalactic: to date they have reached 21 km per second (the NEW HORIZON spaceship) which is 1/14000 of the speed of light more or less...
I hope that perhaps in our generation they will reach speeds that will allow travel at a reasonable speed within the solar system. Speed like the speed at which in the 16th century they could get from Europe to America in terms of arrival time.
Let's say reaching Pluto, which is about 4.45 billion km from us in 4 months, would require a spacecraft capable of moving about 150 million km/h. This means about 430 km per second, which is "only" 20 times the speeds we have reached so far.
"The universe is timing with life"..
Carl Segan
Ingergalactic
The technology we have today does not allow us to provide such speedy spacecraft.
In fact - we haven't even managed to reach one percent of the speed of light yet.
What God has to check after he takes care of a hundred billion stars in one galaxy times 200 billion galaxies is whether the woman of the paths had sex after 6 "clean" days or 7. And if after 6 days, then he recorded. And she will pay.
Why guess?
A space telescope should be sent to every solar system up to 10 light years away from us.
If each spaceship moves at a speed of 10% of the speed of light (for example by using solar wind or a nuclear reactor)
So in 100 years we will have exact answers.
100 years may sound like a long time
But this will be the discovery of the century.
What's more, we will get the first answers in just decades.
Estimates are more along the lines of 200 to 400 billion stars, which means there are a lot of stars without planets around them.
And now we just have to find another Earth-like planet, because we are destroying ours
So on average every star also has a planet? (If I'm not mistaken, the estimate is that there are about a hundred billion stars in the galaxy)