One in Six Stars Has Earth-Sized Planet

Using NASA's Kepler spacecraft, astronomers are beginning to find Earth-sized planets orbiting distant stars. A new analysis of Kepler data shows that about 17% of stars have an Earth-sized planet in an orbit closer than Mercury. Since the Milky Way has about 100 billion stars, there are at least 17 billion Earth-sized worlds out there. The odds are that at least ONE of these harbors intelligent life.

Altogether, researchers have found that 50% of stars have a planet of Earth-size or larger in a close orbit. By adding larger planets, which have been detected in wider orbits up to the orbital distance of the Earth, this number reaches 70%. In other words, practically all Sun-like stars have planets.

The Center for Astrophysics quotes astronomer Guillermo Torres as saying, "Earths and super-Earths aren't picky. We're finding them in all kinds of neighborhoods."

Maybe we're not alone, after all.

Lots of people not only think we're not alone, they KNOW it because they're being VISITED. Anne Strieber regularly interviews "contactees," just for our wonderful subscribers, and if you subscribe today, you can listen to ALL of these extraordinary interviews.
Source: Unknowncountry