Kepler telescope doubles its count of known exoplanets

[Solarion]

Latest data confirm nine more worlds in ‘habitable’ zone

The galaxy is starting to feel a little crowded. Over 1,000 planets have just been added to the roster of worlds known to orbit other stars in the Milky Way, researchers announced May 10 at a news briefing. This is the largest number of exoplanets announced at once.

Most of the 1,284 worlds are larger than Earth but smaller than Neptune. Many of those are probably big balls of gas. But over 100 of the new discoveries are smaller than 1.2 times the diameter of Earth. “Those are almost certainly rocky in nature,” said Timothy Morton, an astrophysicist at Princeton University. Nine planets also lie within the habitable zone, the distance from the star where liquid water could conceivably collect on the surface of the planet. Morton and colleagues detail their findings in the May 10 Astrophysical Journal.

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[rudithefox]

Pretty interesting. Actually crazy how many planets are out there, even without other bodies like rogue planets. Wonder if this has much of an effect on algorithms and theories for example the possibility of ET's. 9 planets in the habitable zone would mean that at the very least there is a higher possibility for development as we've seen/been it and if there is no life there at all that would maybe further the question of how we were so "lucky".