For Every Two Suns, an Earth-like Planet

Exciting news for alien enthusiasts: The discovery by NASA scientists of a vast trove of Earth-like planets orbiting distant suns boosts our chances of finding extraterrestrial life. Findings from the Kepler telescope revealed that for every two stars in the universe, one has an Earth-like "candidate planet" orbiting it, the Telegraph reports. Says a chief Kepler scientist, "I am really delighted that we are seeing so many candidate planets and that means there is a rich ocean of planets out there to explore." Before this, just two potentially habitable planets had been discovered outside our solar system

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[pjwho]

@Karmaceutical420 Yes! There are planets in orbit around half the stars you can see that are potential earths! Goldilocks zone candidates massive enough to maintain atmospheres! These candidates got to be perfect to be like us...keep in mind Venus is within the Sun's goldilocks zone..but it's atmosphere is so thick it is the hottest planet in the system!

[sonicase]

careful not to confuse earthlike with earth sized

kepler found earth sized planets, that doesn't mean they're earthlike as in liquid water/ life etc..

[pjwho]

@sonicase Correct! An Earth-like candidate is not necessarily an oceanic world like our own. Atmospheric conditions play a critical role in planetary habitability. Candidates only until technology catches up!

[noxure]

Since there are 24 stars within a 12 light-year radius, does that mean that they're estimated 12 habitable planets in that (relatively short) range?

[pjwho]

@noxure Good question! If I take 50,000 stars and spread them out, about half will apparently have planetary systems containing Earth-like candidates. But not necessarily the nearest 12 out of 24. Make sense? Bigger population needed.

But I asked my mentor and he said there are around 15 to 20 thousand stars within 100 light years so maybe 10,000 candidates are within our radio emissions sphere, since we have been transmitting for around 100 years. Neat!

[BOATRIGHTGOLF]

You also have to factor other variables such as the distance it is from us if we estimate that it's 100 light years then whatever happened on that planet is long gone by know like a perpetual cycle of societal devlopment tehy will be 100 years ahead of us every second. In fact it could be a huge multiplyer it took 100 light years for a speck of light to get to us in may even be like 100xwho knows what when it comes to space time in fact that planet could be long gone supernova!

[BOATRIGHTGOLF]

ehh to many vairables for real life the planets size effects its gravity which would effect the size of all living creatues on that planet no to mention the uv spectrum of that planet in relations to it's stars luminosity. Plus there is the yearly orbital range it could mean a 675 day year with seasons trhat are not hstipatable to intellignet life. With so many variables you can take the 50% and easily cut that down to about 8% pretty cool though!

[DBCOOPER888]

I think its a given we're going to find a planet with life sometime.  The next question, of course, will be finding an intelligent race we can interact with.

[Karmaceutical420]

@pjwho So is it, Kepler found almost half of the stars had Earth sized planets? or is it, Half of the stars had a planet in the Goldilocks zone? If it's planets in the Goldilocks then WOW!

[tron81]

What's amazing is that we hadn't found a single planet around another star until as late as 1995. This is an exciting time.