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Monday, 1 July, 2002, 14:55 GMT 15:55 UK
Scientists estimate 30 billion Earths
There could be billions of Earths out there
Their assessment comes after the discovery of the 100th exoplanet - a planet that circles a star other than our own. The latest find is a gas giant, just like all the other exoplanets so far detected, and orbits a Sun-like star 293 light-years away.
Virtually all the stars out to about 100 light-years distant have been surveyed. Of these 1,000 or so stars, about 10% have been found to possess planetary systems. So, with about 300 billion stars in our galaxy, there could be about 30 billion planetary systems in the Milky Way alone; and a great many of these systems are very likely to include Earth-like worlds, say researchers. Better grasp The 100th new planet circles the star HD 2039. It was found by astronomers using the Anglo-Australian Telescope as part of the Carnegie Institution Planet Search Program.
Astronomer Dr Jean Schneider, who compiles the Extrasolar Planets Catalogue, told BBC News Online: "The 100th planet is symbolic and important. "The first discoveries concentrated on short orbital periods because of the limited timebase of observations. Now, we are learning more about the statistics of long orbital periods and know to what extent our own Jupiter is exceptional or not." New telescopes With the new world, astronomers say that they have just about finished surveying all the Sun-like stars out to a distance of 100 light-years from Earth. Current planet detection technology - based on the "wobble" induced in the parent star by the gravitational pull of the orbiting planet - can only detect worlds about the mass of Saturn or larger. Earth-sized worlds are too small to be seen. But even in this "biased" survey of giants, the smaller worlds predominate - which makes astronomers think that Earth-like worlds do exist. They may even be as common as Jupiter-sized exoplanets. And if stellar statistics gathered in our local region of space are applied to our galaxy of 300 billion stars, then there may be 30 billion Jupiter-like worlds and perhaps as many Earth-like worlds as well. Astronomers will have to wait for a new generation of space-based telescopes incorporating advanced detectors before they can detect Earth-sized worlds orbiting other stars.
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