By: Mike Wall
Published: 02/06/2013 11:10 AM EST on SPACE.com
Billions of Earth-like alien planets likely reside in our Milky Way galaxy, and the nearest such world may be just a stone's throw away in the cosmic scheme of things, a new study reports.
Astronomers have calculated that 6 percent of the galaxy's 75 billion or so red dwarfs — stars smaller and dimmer than the Earth's own sun — probably host habitable, roughly Earth-size planets. That works out to at least 4.5 billion such "alien Earths," the closest of which might be found a mere dozen light-years away, researchers said.
"We thought we would have to search vast distances to find an Earth-like planet," study lead author Courtney Dressing, of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA), said in a statement. "Now we realize another Earth is probably in our own backyard, waiting to be spotted."
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http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/02/06/alien-earth-milky-way-galaxy-earth-like-planets_n_2631063.html?ncid=webmail35
Also see ....
9 Exoplanets That Could Host Alien Life
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