Scientists Estimate At Least 17 Billion Earth-Size Planets Inhabit Milky Way
1–10 of 49 posts
Re: Scientists Estimate At Least 17 Billion Earth-Size Planets Inhabit Milky Way
#2I didn't think there was anything special about the size of the earth (and apparently I'm right). Can anybody explain why this is important, I don't think the article did a very good job of that.
Re: Scientists Estimate At Least 17 Billion Earth-Size Planets Inhabit Milky Way
#3I didn't think there was anything special about the size of the earth (and apparently I'm right). Can anybody explain why this is important, I don't think the article did a very good job of that.
People are probably interested because one of the factors in the Drake equation is the number of Earth-like planets per star.
Re: Scientists Estimate At Least 17 Billion Earth-Size Planets Inhabit Milky Way
#4I'm curious how many Earth-sized planets have a twin planet like our moon. Without the moon we'd be tidally locked, and despite all our water we wouldn't be nearly as life-friendly.
Re: Scientists Estimate At Least 17 Billion Earth-Size Planets Inhabit Milky Way
#5I'm curious how many Earth-sized planets have a twin planet like our moon. Without the moon we'd be tidally locked, and despite all our water we wouldn't be nearly as life-friendly.
Mercury and Venus aren't tidally locked.
Re: Scientists Estimate At Least 17 Billion Earth-Size Planets Inhabit Milky Way
#6I'm curious how many Earth-sized planets have a twin planet like our moon. Without the moon we'd be tidally locked, and despite all our water we wouldn't be nearly as life-friendly.
Mercury and Venus aren't tidally locked.
They're quite close to it. Mercury takes two of its own years to have one day, and Venus's year is less than two of its days.
Re: Scientists Estimate At Least 17 Billion Earth-Size Planets Inhabit Milky Way
#7I'm curious how many Earth-sized planets have a twin planet like our moon. Without the moon we'd be tidally locked, and despite all our water we wouldn't be nearly as life-friendly.
Having Jupiter nearby to suck up a lot of stray flotsam and jetsam is quite helpful, too. Much harder to make life while under a constant rain of interplanetary debris.
Re: Scientists Estimate At Least 17 Billion Earth-Size Planets Inhabit Milky Way
#8This is interesting, but I think an estimate of the number of planets with lots of liquid water on the surface would be more exciting. Liquid water is key to life as we know it, so knowing how common it is in the galaxy might give us some idea how likely we are to find extraterrestrial life.
Re: Scientists Estimate At Least 17 Billion Earth-Size Planets Inhabit Milky Way
#9I'm curious how many Earth-sized planets have a twin planet like our moon. Without the moon we'd be tidally locked, and despite all our water we wouldn't be nearly as life-friendly.
And also how many of these are in the Goldilocks zone.
Re: Scientists Estimate At Least 17 Billion Earth-Size Planets Inhabit Milky Way
#10Fascinating. Our little rock could be "one in a billion" and we would still have 16 other civilizations to meet. Just in our galaxy.