The Milky Way has 17 billion Earth-sized planets.
Our Milky Way galaxy has at least 17 billion Earth-sized planets and possibly many more, according to a study published on January 7, raising the possibility of discovering one similar to our own.
Astronomers using the Kepler space telescope have found that about 17% of the stars in our galaxy have an Earth-sized planet orbiting Earth.
The Milky Way is thought to have 100 billion stars, meaning about 1/6 of them have an Earth-like planet.
The new discovery doesn't mean all of these exoplanets are habitable. But it does increase the likelihood of finding Earth-like planets.
To support life and allow liquid water, a planet must be neither too close nor too far from its star. This distance would keep the planet's surface from getting too hot or too cold. The Kepler telescope has detected potential exoplanets when they pass in front of their star, creating an eclipse-like phenomenon that slightly dims the star's light.
During its 16-month survey, Kepler identified about 2,400 potential planets.
Researcher Francois Fressin from the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics and colleagues used the results from Kepler to determine which signals indicate the existence of exoplanets and to rank these exoplanets by size.
They found that 17 percent of the stars have a planet between 0.8 and 1.25 times the mass of Earth and orbits on an average of 85 days or less.
About a quarter of stars have super-Earths (1.25 to twice the mass of Earth) with orbits of 150 days or less, about a quarter of stars have a Neptune-sized planet (4–6 times larger than Earth) with orbits of 250 days or less, and only 5% have a gas giant (6–22 times larger than Earth) with orbits of 400 days or less.
The researchers presented the results of their analysis at a meeting of the American Astronomical Society in Long Beach, California.
Meanwhile, NASA's Kepler mission has announced the discovery of 461 new planets. Four of them are nearly twice the size of Earth and they operate in an ideal orbit that can support life./.
According to (Vietnam+) - VT
