If we had, ACORN would be canvassing their neighborhoods signing them up to vote.
Course, its possible that they're conservatives and just want the government to leave them the hell alone.
Posted on 01/11/2012 11:05:37 AM PST by presidio9
A statistical analysis based on a survey of millions of stars suggests that there's at least one planet for every star in the sky, and probably more. That would add up to 160 billion planets or so in the Milky Way.
"We conclude that stars are orbited by planets as a rule, rather than the exception," an international research team reports today in the journal Nature.
The estimate may sound amazing: Just a year ago, the world was wowed by the claim that at least half of the 100 billion or more stars in the Milky Way possessed planets, yielding a figure of 50 billion planets. The latest survey now suggests that there's an average of 1.6 planets per star system, which would work out to 160 billion. But perhaps the most amazing thing about the findings is ... astronomers don't find them amazing at all.
"I am not surprised by the numbers," Didier Queloz, a planet-hunter at the Geneva Observatory who was not involved in the survey, told me in an email. Back in 2008, Queloz was part of a different research team that concluded one-third of the stars like our sun harbored super-Earth-size planets — the kinds of planets that could support life.
Over the past couple of years, findings from a variety of planet-hunting missions — including NASA's Kepler space telescope, the European Space Agency's COROT telescope and ground-based telescope surveys — have reinforced the view that planets are plentiful.
"Resiuts from the three main techniques of planet detection are rapidly converging to a common result: Not only are planets common in the galaxy, but there are more small planets than large ones," Caltech astronomer Stephen Kane, a member of the team behind the findings reported in Nature,
(Excerpt) Read more at cosmiclog.msnbc.msn.com ...
Kepler works by measuring the dimming of the star as a planet passes in front of it.
Not really. Yes, it is an awesome thing to contemplate the vastness of the universe but remember this - that universe contemplates nothing.
They’re inhabited.
That can't even be said for all the planets and moons in our solar system. Just because they aren't inhabited, doesn't mean they are a waste.
They were.
So maybe we CAN each have our own planet.
That would require that we be in the same plane as the orbit of the planet, would it not?
But that provides no more (probably less) information about whether the planet could sustain life than measuring the wobble effect.
160 billion planets in the Milky Way (and no intelligent life on any of them).
A great idea.
It maybe a while since 0bama's people have not started astronaut training for their trip to one of the asteroids.
First the asteroids then the back side of the moon?
That statement is a display of pure ignorance.
You're probably right. That must be why Snitt Romney wants to be President, to pad his resume.
That’s just way more than WOW!
Scientologists too. They can divide the universe between theirselves!
(Waiting for the humourless to respond: “that was uncalled for”.)
And 7 billion people on Earth and about half a dozen more in a tin can orbiting it.
The planet with thousands of beautiful sex starved Amazon women is mine!
BTW, the tallest of those pillars in that image, is closer to 60 trillion miles high...
Low earth orbit is good for one thing. (Actually the moon is even better)
Manufacturing for launches of large ships from orbit.
There is some great much faster propulsion technology out there but the problem is that it tends to be large and its still gotta be lifted to orbit.
Even more incredible than it's size....Recently evidence was discovered which indicates the Pillars were possibly destroyed by a nearby supernova explosion about 6,000 years ago, but that event or light from that object, will not reach Earth for another thousand years. It's being speculated what is left is a stellar nursery, where stars are being created/formed from the material left in the aftermath of that possible cataclysmic event.
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