Milky Way May Contain 17 Billion Earth-Size Planets

Using data from NASA’s Kepler spacecraft, two independent teams of astronomers have estimated that the Milky Way galaxy contains some 17 billion planets that are similar in size to Earth. What do you think?

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  “Are they sure they’re not double-counting Earth?”

  Teddy Schiarelli –
  Kitchen Runner

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  “Cool. We should set up some sort of well-funded federal space program to go explore some of them.”

  Rupert Avalon –
  Quarry Supervisor

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  “Okay, I’ll check them out as soon as I finally hit every state here in the U.S., but I’ve still got about 13 to go.”

  Susanne Fox –
  Human Factors Specialist