In the Milky Way galaxy alone, there
are over 300 million potentially habitable exoplanets. This indicates that 300
million planets are likely to have the necessary conditions for life—and
sophisticated life—to evolve on their surfaces. Are we the only ones in the
universe?
How vast is the universe in which we live? Given our existing technology and
measurement of the universe, we are unable to acquire this answer. We can make
educated guesses, but we are still a long way from investigating the universe.
We can get a better idea of the size of our galaxy. Overall,
it's a vast location packed with planets. But how many of these worlds are like
Earth, and how many of them are habitable? This is another difficult solution
to obtain, but we can do the math based on observations over the years.
According to new research based on data from the Kepler space observatory,
there could be up to 300 million potentially habitable planets in our galaxy.
The nice news about the new estimations is that they could be very close to
Earth; none of these possibly habitable exoplanets are more than 30 light-years
away.
Researchers from NASA, the SETI Institute, and other
institutions from around the world collaborated in one large project to help us
better comprehend the galaxy we live in.
While 300 million planets may appear to be a large number, it is far from the
total number of planets thought to exist in our galaxy. According to our best
calculations, the Milky Way has at least one planet for every star, implying
that the galaxy we dwell in could have anywhere from 100 billion to 400 billion
planets.
The visible universe
The observable universe, on the other hand, has at least 125
billion galaxies.
According to co-author Jeff Coughlin, a SETI
Institute scientist who studies exoplanets, "this is the first time that
all of the components have been put together to produce a solid count of the
number of potentially habitable planets in the galaxy."
The best aspect is that once we know how many habitable
exoplanets there are in the galaxy, we can reconsider the Drake Equation.
“This is a key term of the Drake Equation, used to estimate the number of
communicable civilizations — we’re one step closer on the long road to finding
out if we’re alone in the cosmos,” the researcher revealed.
The Drake Equation assesses the likelihood of how many
possibly advanced alien civilizations exist in our galaxy and how many of them
we can contact from Earth.
Estimate Revised
Researchers looked for worlds similar to Earth in their
revised estimate of possible habitable planets in our galaxy. They also took
into account planets that are most likely stony in nature.
Scientists then looked for Sun-like stars in the universe,
seeking for stars that are around the same age and temperature as our sun.
Another crucial element to evaluate is whether exoplanets match the conditions
for liquid water to exist on their surfaces, as this has a significant impact
on the habitability of faraway worlds. All of this was taken into account in
the latest study, which varies from prior studies that merely looked for
potentially habitable planets in the galaxy, relying mainly on the planet's
distance from the star to make their estimates.
The new study takes into account a few extra factors, such as
how much light from the star strikes the planet; this is an essential component
in evaluating the likelihood of liquid water on the planet's surface.
Researchers examined data obtained by the Kepler Space
Telescope as well as data collected by the European Space Agency's Gaia Mission.
The Kepler space telescope, which stopped searching for
exoplanets in 2018, discovered over 2,800 exoplanets throughout the cosmos.
Many of these worlds are still awaiting confirmation, which might increase the
number of planets identified in the cosmos to date.
There are 4,935 confirmed exoplanets, 8709 NASA exoplanet
candidates, and 3,706 solar systems as of March 3, 2022. More information is
available here.
SETI's news release can be found here.
Reference(s): The Astronomical Journal
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