We may be unique as a race, but it seems more and more evidence keeps piling up against the how special our planet Earth is. The latest study out of NASA's Kepler mission data reveals that as many as 1 in 5 sun-like stars contain Earth-like planets.
It doesn't stop there, however. The team of scientists involved in the study state that these Earth-like planets should also contain a surface temperature conducive to life.
"When you look up at the thousands of stars in the night sky, the nearest sun-like star with an Earth-size planet in its habitable zone is probably only twelve light-years away and can be seen with the naked eye. That is amazing," said UC Berkeley graduate student Erik Petigura.
The Milky Way contains around 200 billion stars, with around 20 percent of them similar to the sun.
Of course, just being the right size and temperature isn't enough. This isn't Goldilocks and the three bears.
"Some may have thick atmospheres, making it so hot at the surface that DNA-like molecules would not survive. Others may have rocky surfaces that could harbor liquid water suitable for living organisms," UC Berkley professor Geoffrey Marcy said.
"We don't know what range of planet types and their environments are suitable for life."
NASA's Kepler space observatory launched in 2009 with one major mission: to search for Earth-like exoplanets in the far reaches of space. Although Kepler was decommissioned due to equipment failures earlier in 2013, researchers are still pouring over the data collected by the spaceraft during its four years high above the Earth.
You can read the full published study detailing the findings in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
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