NASA Delivers Yet More Evidence that Earth Isn't That Special
Posted by Michael_Byrne on Thursday, Oct 28, 2010
In tomorrow’s issue of Science, a group of NASA astronomers will drop more news that planet Earth isn’t all that special. In fact, at least in terms of size, turns out it’s pretty average within the Milky Way. The data points to a full quarter of stars similar to our sun hosting planets within the size range of Earth. And far, far less stars hosting giants like Jupiter and Saturn.
“We studied planets of many masses—like counting boulders, rocks and pebbles in a canyon—and found more rocks than boulders, and more pebbles than rocks. Our ground-based technology can’t see the grains of sand, the Earth-size planets, but we can estimate their numbers,” says Andrew Howard of the University of California, Berkeley, lead author of the study.
“Earth-size planets in our galaxy are like grains of sand sprinkled on a beach — they are everywhere,” he adds. To the tune of 46 billion Earth-size planets even.
The rub is that these planets are in their star’s so-called hot zones, which are orbits too close in to allow the development of life. But, that number raises hopes considerably for finding Earth-size planets in habitable orbits. A whole lot of them.
Reach this writer at michaelb@motherboard.tv.
About the author
Michael covers physics, climate science, the future of music, and assorted things fallen through cracks at Motherboard. A native of Colorado, Michigan, and Oregon, he currently resides in Baltimore...
