New mind boggling number of planets in our Galaxy

[mrk]

I doubt humans will still be living on this planet in 1 million years time but in 3 billion years the Andromeda Galaxy is set to collide with our own Milky Way after which point a new Galaxy will be formed with new star systems and new planets so the numbers are constantly increasing but take this for starters...

NASA's Kepler telescope has helped Astronomers estimate that there are 50 billion planets in our Galaxy with 500 million in a habitable zone from their Stars. That's in our own Galaxy.

Those figures are likely larger as well because, as the source suggests, many of the Stars will have more planets but only some will be seen as they pass Kepler's view.

I liked this quote:

Either way it shows that Carl Sagan was right when he talked of billions and billions of worlds, said retired NASA astronomer Steve Maran, who praised the research but wasn't part of it.

The man is still a legend


More coolness @ Kepler
Tweets on #Kepler

 

[Cosimo]

Kepler keeps finding them:

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/kepler/news/kepler_data_release.html

 

[Pixel]

Just read about this elsewhere myself, exciting stuff. It also means that if we ever get off our arses and develop interstellar travel, we'll have plenty of destinations to check out.

 

[CLAWS]

Just read about this elsewhere myself, exciting stuff. It also means that if we ever get off our arses and develop interstellar travel, we'll have plenty of destinations to check out.

Very exciting. Interstellar travel would be fantastic and would unlock many many possibilities for the human race. It could also have a negative impact if humans suddenly took to the stars on some crusade to colonise. Imagine Space Marines from Warhammer with their xenophobia

 

[Angilion]

Very exciting. Interstellar travel would be fantastic and would unlock many many possibilities for the human race. It could also have a negative impact if humans suddenly took to the stars on some crusade to colonise. Imagine Space Marines from Warhammer with their xenophobia

Or if it brought us into contact with another species of people who decide that inventing interstellar travel makes us a potential threat to them.

I'm not convinced by the previous poster's argument that the only reason we haven't got interstellar travel is that we haven't got off our arses. It's not a trivial thing. It's only common and straightforward in sci-fi because the stories require it. In reality, we've no idea how such a thing might be possible, let alone how to do it.

 

[Zefan]

I'm all up for space travel, but after Mass Effect 2 the idea of finding new planets just makes me shudder.

 

[Nanoman]

Propulsion is out the question as we are limited by light speed. De and re-materialising matter or worm holes tbh, i.e. technology that's 100,000 years away.

 

[britboy4321]

A found all my space knowledge here ..