[firebug]

Originally Posted by troutman

Milky Way Galaxy Shown to Be Teeming With Planets

http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/20...y-way-planets/

Just 20 years ago, astronomers had no direct evidence that planets orbited other stars. Now, researchers estimate the Milky Way galaxy contains a huge number of planets, with Earth-sized worlds vastly outnumbering the rest.

“We find that, on average, every star has a planet, and since there are at least 100 billion stars, there are at least 100 billion planets,” said astronomer Kailash Sahu of the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, Maryland, who co-authored the new study, appearing Jan. 11 in Nature.

“We think about one-sixth of stars should have a Jupiter-like planet, half have a Neptune-sized planet, and two-thirds should have an Earth,” said Sahu.

I would guess on average every star has more than one planet, but the smaller planets are too difficult to detect.

Smallest planets found to date.

Very Large Image (comparison to Jupiter is to scale)

Spoiler!