Billions and billions of happy little super-earths

[Anonymous No.4514992]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-17532470

There could be many billions of planets not much bigger than Earth circling faint stars in our galaxy, says an international team of astronomers.

The estimate for the number of "super-Earths" is based on detections already made and then extrapolated to include the Milky Way's population of so-called red dwarf stars.

The team works with the high-precision Harps instrument.

This is fitted to the 3.6m telescope at the Silla Observatory in Chile.

Harps employs an indirect method of detection that infers the existence of orbiting planets from the way their gravity makes a parent star appear to twitch in its motion across the sky.

"Our new observations with Harps mean that about 40% of all red dwarf stars have a super-Earth orbiting in the habitable zone where liquid water can exist on the surface of the planet," said team leader Xavier Bonfils from the Observatoire des Sciences de l'Univers de Grenoble, France.

"Because red dwarfs are so common - there are about 160 billion of them in the Milky Way - this leads us to the astonishing result that there are tens of billions of these planets in our galaxy alone."

[Anonymous No.4515003]

born too late for earth exploration
born too early for space exploration.jpg

[Anonymous No.4515006]

>>4515003

[Anonymous No.4515010]

>>4515003

Never too late or early for scientific exploration though. Enjoy!

[Anonymous No.4515022]

>come to /sci/ to post link
>see thread
good enough
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9D05ej8u-gU

[Anonymous No.4515051]

>>4515003
>>4515006
>>yfw NO HUMAN BEING has ever set foot on another planet before or for that matter gone further than lunar orbit.

As far as space exploration goes, we haven't explored shit. It's a motherfucking exciting time. There's a chance we could see expansion throughout the solar system in our lifetime. We'll get to see the beginnings of space colonization.

[Anonymous No.4515060]

>You will never run around naked on Mars

all those feels

[Anonymous No.4515065]

>>4515060

[Anonymous No.4515153]

>you were born too soon.jpg