Astronomers Say Milky Way Has Around 2 Billion “Earth Analog” Planets (That’s the Bad News)

Astronomers Say Milky Way Has Around 2 Billion “Earth Analog” Planets (That’s the Bad News) | 80beats | Discover Magazine
Based on early Kepler data, astronomers say that the Milky Way galaxy may house at least two billion Earth-like planets—one for every several dozen sun-like stars. As NASA researcher Joseph Catanzarite told Space.com, “With that large a number, there’s a good chance life and maybe even intelligent life might exist on some of those planets. And that’s just our galaxy alone — there are 50 billion other galaxies.” But while 2 billion sounds like a lot, it’s actually far below many scientists’ expectation; Catanzarite says his teams’ findings actually show that Earth-like planets are “relatively scarce.”