Hum Posted January 3, 2013 Share Posted January 3, 2013 Our Milky Way galaxy is home to at least 100 billion alien planets, and possibly many more, a new study suggests. "It's a staggering number, if you think about it," lead author Jonathan Swift, of Caltech in Pasadena, said in a statement. "Basically there's one of these planets per star." Swift and his colleagues arrived at their estimate after studying a five-planet system called Kepler-32, which lies about 915 light-years from Earth. The five worlds were detected by NASA's Kepler Space Telescope, which flags the tiny brightness dips caused when exoplanets cross their star's face from the instrument's perspective. The Kepler-32 planets orbit an M dwarf, a type of star that is smaller and cooler than our sun. M dwarfs are the most common star in the Milky Way, accouting for about 75 percent of the galaxy's 100 billion or so stars, researchers said. Further, the five Kepler-32 worlds are similar in size to Earth and orbit quite close to their parent star, making them typical of the planets Kepler has spotted around other M dwarfs. So the Kepler-32 system should be representative of many of the galaxy's planets, scientists said. Kepler can detect planetary systems only if they're oriented edge-on to the telescope; otherwise, the instrument won't observe any star-dimming planetary transits. So the researchers calculated the odds that an M-dwarf system in the Milky Way would have this orientation, then combined that with the number of such systems Kepler is able to detect to come up with their estimate of 100 billion exoplanets. The new analysis confirms three of the five Kepler-32 planets (the other two had been confirmed previously). The Kepler-32 worlds have diameters ranging from 0.8 to 2.7 times that of Earth, and all of them orbit within 10 million miles (16 million kilometers) of their star. For comparison, Earth circles the sun at an average distance of 93 million miles (150 million km). more Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Luc2k Posted January 3, 2013 Share Posted January 3, 2013 Alien planets.. does that mean they came from another galaxy? mudslag and +hedleigh 2 Share Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Teej Posted January 3, 2013 Share Posted January 3, 2013 Kepler-32 planets are okay, but I'm currently awaiting next year's Maxwell-64 planets. Nice find, though! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hum Posted January 3, 2013 Author Share Posted January 3, 2013 Alien planets.. does that mean they came from another galaxy? The planets are 'alien' in relation to Earth. Still, many of those planets could be completely earth-like. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
spacer Posted January 3, 2013 Share Posted January 3, 2013 I figured the number of planets in our galaxy had to be high, but at least now we have a "concrete" number to use. And, This is why alien life absolutely exists elsewhere in the universe. Very cool stuff. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Luc2k Posted January 3, 2013 Share Posted January 3, 2013 The planets are 'alien' in relation to Earth. Still, many of those planets could be completely earth-like. That makes sense I guess, but it the use of "alien" still seems redundant to me. *RedBull* 1 Share Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hum Posted January 4, 2013 Author Share Posted January 4, 2013 ^ Well, if humans went to say, Mars, then they would be 'alien'. ;) The writer probably put in alien to catch the reader's interest. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
123456789A Posted January 4, 2013 Share Posted January 4, 2013 Kepler-32 planets are okay, but I'm currently awaiting next year's Maxwell-64 planets. Nice find, though! Are the Maxwell-64s backward compatible with the Keplers? Hum 1 Share Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hum Posted January 4, 2013 Author Share Posted January 4, 2013 ^ Only on an Alienware machine. ;) 123456789A and The Teej 2 Share Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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