A cosmic census conducted for the first time has revealed that there are at least 50 billion planets in our Milky Way galaxy.
And some 500 million of those planets are in what is known as the Goldilocks zone, where the climate is thought to be not-too-hot and not-too-cold, and life could exist, Daily Mail reported Sunday.
The numbers were extrapolated from the early results of NASA’s Kepler telescope following a three-and-a-half year mission, which has cost about $600 million.
Kepler science chief William Borucki says scientists took the number of planets they found in the first year of searching a small part of the night sky and then made an estimate on how likely stars are to have planets. Kepler spots planets as they pass between Earth and the star it orbits.
So far Kepler has found 1,235 candidate planets, with 54 in the Goldilocks zone, where life could possibly exist.
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