100 billion planets in Milky Way Galaxy


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Researchers have concluded that each star in the Milky Way galaxy likely has at least one planet orbiting it, meaning that our galaxy has at least 100 billion planets to its name.

Using a technique called microlensing, and statistical analysis applied to six years' worth of observations from the PLANET (Probing Lensing Anomalies NETwork), MOA (Microlensing Observations in Astrophysics) and OGLE (Optical Gravitational Lensing Experiment) surveys, researchers were able to determine that statistically speaking, every star in the Milky Way should have at least one orbiting planet, if not more. Moreover, these planets are likelier to have low masses, similar to Earth, than Jupiter-like masses.

"We used to think that the Earth might be unique in our galaxy. But now it seems that there are literally billions of planets with masses similar to Earth orbiting stars in the Milky Way," says Daniel Kubas, co-author of a paper on the subject released in the journal Nature, in a statement.

The microlensing technique uses the motion of stars and their gravity: when one star moves in front of another, it acts like a lens, magnifying the light from the background star. If there's a planet in orbit around the foreground star, it can further magnify the light. It's that extra boost that reveals the planet itself, which would otherwise be too faint to see through a telescope.

Microlensing also reveals the mass of the planet, but doesn't really indicate what the world is composed of.

These findings, reported by an international team of astronomers, are supported by data from two other planet-finding techniques, that is, detection of a planet's gravitational pull, or the dimming of a star as a planet passes in front of it. Taken together, the three techniques indicate that planets are pretty common in the Milky Way, and that there are more small planets than massive ones.

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That's pretty call. I wonder how many though can support life? It's been discovered that even our position in our galaxy (our solar system) is the called the "goldilocks spot".

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.. and then one day "they" will discover that there are even more..! Also this is one galaxy, it's pretty amazing to think that there are hundreds of billions galaxies in the universe!

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Oh man, makes you feel so small and insignificant huh? It's like we are a spec of dust (not even grain of sand, but dust!) in the ocean as big as the sun!

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Oh man, makes you feel so small and insignificant huh? It's like we are a spec of dust (not even grain of sand, but dust!) in the ocean as big as the sun!

In a bizarre way, it actually scares the bejesus out of me! If anything, it makes you realize how we and what "surrounds" us, (Earth, solar system) is but a mere pinprick in infinity basically!

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and not one of them is capable of supporting life except ours! *tries not to laugh* :rofl:

you gota think that at least one of those planets had an intelligent life form evolve thousands or tens of thousands of years or more before we became what we are... and who's to think what they figured out that we haven't even dreamed of yet

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I can't believe that in our universes short existence of only 6000 years this many planets have formed. Space continues to amaze me!

Yeah right! Either you are trying to be funny, start an argument or you are seriously challenged in the grey matter department!

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Cool! There are 14 for each of us! :p

Careful now! Don't give ideas to those "buy your lunar real estate" types :D

In a bizarre way, it actually scares the bejesus out of me! If anything, it makes you realize how we and what "surrounds" us, (Earth, solar system) is but a mere pinprick in infinity basically!

Total Perspective Vortex :s

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I can't believe that in our universes short existence of only 6000 years this many planets have formed. Space continues to amaze me!

Well it shouldn't amaze you too much, they were all formed at once. More amazing is how they all balance on the back of that turtle. :laugh:

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Well it shouldn't amaze you too much, they were all formed at once. More amazing is how they all balance on the back of that turtle. :laugh:

I wish we could reach it but because of the Earth border aka Antarctica it's too heavily guarded/cold and thus we might never cross it and therefore never know the truth of the turtle! :p

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Oh man, makes you feel so small and insignificant huh? It's like we are a spec of dust (not even grain of sand, but dust!) in the ocean as big as the sun!

That's what I was thinking......I suddenly feel small.

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Oh man, makes you feel so small and insignificant huh? It's like we are a spec of dust (not even grain of sand, but dust!) in the ocean as big as the sun!

This may help put it into perspective :p

post-147589-0-39157400-1326345911.jpg

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Absolutely stunning how there's even more infinite things to explore and learn about! :D Can't wait to see what our future technology will take and show us.

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Can't warp my mind over how this huuuuuuuuuge thing came into existence, and how does it exist, and how can it be infinte and :s

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