Data from NASA’s Kepler space telescope has been used to compile a new estimates of Earth type planets.
The present data suggests that as many as 50% of Sol class stars contain earth sized planets which inhabit the favorable "Goldilocks" orbit where liquid water is still liquid.
As good as this sounds though, researches say that planets 2 or 3 times the mass of earth, roughly the size of Neptune or Uranus would be equally as common as Earth sized planets and with the size and atmosphere, not very likely to produce life as we know it.
Also a large portion of Earth sized worlds are likely to be well outside of the life zone. ether to close in to their primary or much to far outside the habitable zone.
Still, the chances are good for Sol type stars having Earth class planets
Read complete wired article here Wired Science
3 comments:
Interesting, though the Wired article has a rather noticeable error in it.
"Exoplanets two or three times the size of Earth – nearly the same size as Neptune or Uranus – would likely have a rocky core surrounded by a thick atmosphere of hydrogen and helium"
It's unclear rather they mean volume or diameter when they refer to "size" but either way Uranus has 63 times the volume of Earth, while Neptune has a volume of 58 times that of Earth. Both planets have diameters approximately 4 times that of Earth.
I've always been of one mind set when it comes to looking for life out there.
Stop thinking it has to be like here. Just because we are carbon based, doesn't mean that anything else in the universe has to be.
It is very possible that we could be the only carbon based life form in existence.
Seeing another world evolving like we have, or close to us seems like a cop out to me, based on close minded people that won't think of anything different than us. That we are the ultimate life form.
Just because we are one way, doesn't mean squat. Had we evolved on a planet with an all water surface, we would be thinking all life in the universe had to be that way.
To me it is completely silly, but that is just me.
You know Kall, I wonder if the carbon based life or "liquid water" is more for the initial discovery. I think that alternative life forms may be impossible to recognize at least initially. So its life we know and then once we have that confidence, go after the lesser likely.
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