500 million habitable planets Bashny.Net

In our Milky Way, there are about 500 million planets that are potentially suitable for life. This was reported in Washington at the annual conference of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, astronomers NASA.

Statement of astronomers based on the data that they have received with the help of space telescope Kepler. Conclusions built by the method of extrapolation, since Kepler is able to cover only four of the starry sky. With regard to the whole universe, the scientists suspect that habitable planets could be of the order of 100 billion.

Kepler was launched in 2009. His task is to directly "hunt" for planets orbiting distant stars. The unique astronomical instrument in monitoring the star captures the slightest changes in their brightness. Such changes may indicate the presence of the star of the planet, which is crossing the disco light, figuratively speaking, obscures it. The intensity of the shadows and duration of intervals between them allows astronomers to calculate the characteristics of space objects.

Kepler is the first space astronomy instrument NASA, which is able to "see" objects the size of Earth in the immediate vicinity of the star.





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