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A new study finds there could be about 60 billion Earth-sized habitable planets orbiting red dwarfs – the most common stars in our universe – in the Milky Way galaxy.
That’s more than twice as many potentially habitable planets than was previously thought.
The new report from two Chicago area universities finds that clouds surrounding these planets may be hiding them from detection.
The researchers drew upon current data from NASA’s Kepler Mission, which searched for Earth-like planets orbiting other stars up until this past May. The new study from Northwestern University and the University of Chicago suggests there is approximately one Earth-size planet in the habitable zone of each red dwarf.
“Most of the planets in the Milky Way orbit red dwarfs,” said Nicolas Cowan, a postdoctoral fellow at Northwestern University. “A thermostat that makes such planets more clement means we don’t have to look as far to find a habitable planet.”
The findings contradict other recent studies, including one from the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, which found our galaxy has about 4.5 billion Earth-sized planets. Another study from the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) estimated there are about 30 billion of these planets in our galaxy.
“Those numbers are confusing, partially because they are still being sorted out,” Cowan said in an email to Science World.
All three studies were based on virtually the same data from Kepler.
60 Billion Earth-like Planets Could Exist in Milky Way Galaxy « Science World
That’s more than twice as many potentially habitable planets than was previously thought.
The new report from two Chicago area universities finds that clouds surrounding these planets may be hiding them from detection.
The researchers drew upon current data from NASA’s Kepler Mission, which searched for Earth-like planets orbiting other stars up until this past May. The new study from Northwestern University and the University of Chicago suggests there is approximately one Earth-size planet in the habitable zone of each red dwarf.
“Most of the planets in the Milky Way orbit red dwarfs,” said Nicolas Cowan, a postdoctoral fellow at Northwestern University. “A thermostat that makes such planets more clement means we don’t have to look as far to find a habitable planet.”
The findings contradict other recent studies, including one from the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, which found our galaxy has about 4.5 billion Earth-sized planets. Another study from the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) estimated there are about 30 billion of these planets in our galaxy.
“Those numbers are confusing, partially because they are still being sorted out,” Cowan said in an email to Science World.
All three studies were based on virtually the same data from Kepler.
60 Billion Earth-like Planets Could Exist in Milky Way Galaxy « Science World
