500 million planets in the galaxy

only in our Milky Way galaxy, there are at least 50 billion planets. Of these, at least 500 million potentially useful life. These data are presented on Saturday in Washington at the annual conference of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, astronomers the United States National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). Their findings are based on information obtained by the US Space Telescope "Kepler". These findings were obtained by extrapolation - "Kepler" examines only one of the four starry sky. Thus it is solely about our galaxy. A total of the universe is believed to American experts, may be as many 100 billion. Telescope "Kepler" was launched into space in 2009 specifically to 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 NASA space astronomical tool that is able to "see" objects the size of Earth in the immediate vicinity of the star (this fact makes it difficult to observe).

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