Researchers find many Earth-like planets around sun-like stars

Study researchers believe, it’s highly likely that their quantity is higher at greater distances, including in the fabled '”Goldilocks zone,” an orbital path where conditions are neither too cold nor too hot but are just right to support water and probably life.

While commenting on study’s startling findings, Dr. Andrew Howard from the University of California at Berkeley and the co-study author, said, “Of about 100 typical Sun-like stars, one or two have planets the size of Jupiter, roughly six have a planet the size of Neptune, and about 12 have super-Earths between three and 10 Earth masses.

“If we extrapolate down to Earth-size planets between one-half and two times the mass of Earth, we predict that you'd find about 23 for every 100 stars.”

Research study details
To come to this conclusion, Howard along with his colleague Geoffrey Marcy, used the 10-meter Keck telescope in Hawaii’s Keck Observatory.

Study researchers believe, it’s highly likely that their quantity is higher at greater distances, including in the fabled “Goldilocks zone,” an orbital path where conditions are neither too cold nor too hot but are just right to support water and probably life.

For five long years they studied 166 G (are yellow like Sun) and K (slightly smaller and orange-red in color) stars that are within 80 light-years of Earth and detected 33 giant planets circling around 22 stars.

After analyzing, researchers found that about 1.6 percent of sampled stars had Jupiter-sized while 12 percent had super-Earths, three to ten times Earth’s normal size.

Researchers noted that smaller and Neptune-sized planets seem to be more common in the galaxy than giant sized planets like Jupiter.

And after using extrapolation method they concluded that 23 percent of these stars might have Earth-sized planets.

"If there's life out there, it's most likely that it exists on rocky planets like our own Earth. So if there are more rocky small planets out there, then it seems more likely that there's life out there too," wrote study authors.

Marcy revealed that they have also spotted additional 12 possible planets but they did not confirm their existence as further study on them is need.

Further research needed
Scientists believe that though new study has provided some new information on the galaxy and the possibility of many more Earth-like planets, still further research is needed.

Dr. Robert Massey from the Royal Astronomical Society stated, "We probably need to wait a bit longer before we find a significant number of 'Earths' in habitable zones of their parent stars."

The new study findings have appeared in the Friday issue of the journal 'Science.'