U.S. Investment Immigration focuses on U.S. Technology development: A recent study by U.S. astronomers has discovered that there are billions of Earth-sized planets in the Milky Way, and these planets are neither too hot nor too cold, making them suitable for life. This is the first time astronomers have arrived at this conclusion through calculations.
For the first time, U.S. astronomers have used data from NASA to calculate that there are at least 8.8 billion Earth-sized planets in the Milky Way, and these planets have temperatures suitable for human habitation. This research was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences on November 4. From a certain perspective, the number of Earth-like planets exceeds the number of humans living on Earth.
Geoff Marcy from the University of California, Berkeley, a long-time planet hunter and co-author of this research paper, pointed out that there are 8.8 billion planets similar to Earth in the Milky Way alone. The next step for scientists will be to use powerful space telescopes to explore the atmospheres of these planets, providing further clues about which of these planets are indeed suitable for human habitation. Geoff Marcy believes that this research finding raises another intriguing question: if humanity is not alone, why have we not received any information from other advanced civilizations in the Milky Way?
Bill Borucki, the chief scientist of NASA's Kepler mission, joked on November 4 that if humanity could travel deep into space, there would be a lot of traffic congestion. The Kepler telescope has focused on 42,000 stars, which is only a tiny fraction of the total number of stars in the Milky Way. Astronomers hope to determine how many planets in the Milky Way are similar to Earth through observation, and the current research findings indicate that for the first time, scientists know the proportion of Earth-like planets around sun-like stars through calculations rather than estimates. The answer is 22%.
It is reported that there are approximately 200 billion planets in the Milky Way, of which 40 billion are similar to the Sun. Another co-author of this latest research believes that there are 50 billion sun-like planets in the Milky Way, which means there are at least 11 billion Earth-like planets. This is just the statistical number for the Milky Way, while there are billions of other galaxies in the universe.