moderation:

160 Billion! The New Estimate of Alien Planets in the Milky Way

—

The Kepler Space Mission’s search for habitable planets in a tiny window representing 1/400th of the Milky is proving Arthur C Clark, author of Space Odyssey 2001 right:  ”The idea that we are the only intelligent creatures in a cosmos of a hundred billion galaxies is so preposterous that there are very few astronomers today who would take it seriously,” Clarke wrote. ” It is safest to assume therefore, that they are out there and to consider the manner in which this may impinge upon human society.”

According to a fascinating new study a new study based on Kepler data on the average, each of the 100 billion or so stars in our galaxy hosts at least 1.6 planets, bringing the number of likely exo worlds to more than 160 billion. Recent research conclude that large numbers of these exoplanets are likely to be small, rocky Earth-like low-mass planets, which  appear to be much more abundant than large ones.

(via dailygalaxy)