Many billions of rocky planets in the habitable zones around red dwarfs in the Milky Way
Wednesday, March 28, 2012 - 06:03
in Astronomy & Space
(PhysOrg.com) -- A new result from ESOs HARPS planet finder shows that rocky planets not much bigger than Earth are very common in the habitable zones around faint red stars. The international team estimates that there are tens of billions of such planets in the Milky Way galaxy alone, and probably about one hundred in the Suns immediate neighbourhood. This is the first direct measurement of the frequency of super-Earths around red dwarfs, which account for 80% of the stars in the Milky Way.