January 26, 2012

26 Alien Planets

I saw an article on Space.com today that NASA has discovered 26 alien planets orbiting 11 different stars. Remember when it was special just to find one extra-solar planet three times the size of Jupiter?

Unfortunately, scientists can't tell us yet which planets are rocky or just gas giants. But the odds of finding a planet that can support life is increasing. These planets were found by staring at a stretch of the night sky "the size of your fist". The law of probablility tells us that there are potentially millions of planets in our Galaxy. The law of probability can be taken one step further to say that there are potentially thousands of planets like our own. Either revalation is stunning.

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