Habitable Planets: Upgraded from 40,000 to Billions!
It was only less than a few weeks ago that we reported that Astrophysicist Duncan Forgan had boldly calculated that there are about 40,000 planets that would support intelligent life — well like a free nerd upgrade Dr. Alan Boss of the Carnegie Institution of Science now claims that our galaxy could have billions of earth-like planets! Boss’s thinking is that each Sun-like star has on average one “Earth-like” planet, although sadly he wouldn’t go on the record like Forgan and take his math to the next level to make predictions about intelligent life. In fact on the negative side (or positive?) Boss feels that many of these planets are in primitive states and are populated by less advanced life forms like bacteria. But up on the up side Dr. Boss thinks that NASA’s Kepler mission might begin to spot earth-like planets in just a few years.