Earth-Like Habitable Planets Surprisingly Common, Kepler Space Telescope Data Suggest
Habitable alien planets similar to Earth may not be that rare in the universe, a new study suggests.
About one in five sunlike stars observed by NASA's planet-hunting Kepler spacecraft has an Earth-size planet in the so-called habitable zone, where liquid water — and, potentially life — could exist, according to the new study. If these results apply elsewhere in the galaxy, the nearest such planet could be just 12 light-years away.
"Human beings have been looking at the stars for thousands of years," said study researcher Erik Petigura, a graduate student at the University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley). "How many of those stars have planets that are in some way like Earth? We're very excited today to start to answer that question," Petigura told SPACE.com. [9 Exoplanets That Could Host Alien Life]
The findings, detailed today (Nov. 4) in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences and in a video describing the frequency of Earth-like planets, say nothing about whether these planets actually support life — only that they meet some of the known criteria for habitability
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/11/04/earth-like-habitable-planets-kepler-space-video_n_4214758.html
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________YYes, indeed...they sure are. Many out there. Billions. Now here is something I definitely recall. Over 45 years ago, I took a course called "Introduction to Social Science" at the University of Illinois at Navy Pier..It is now called the Circle. But I remember reading a short intro book on astronomy and whatever was up to date then, and the author predicted, based on his calculations, that there would be billions of earth like planets out there, and some of them very likely had life on them, like ours. Some may have advanced life ...and we talked about it, and Star Trek was big then. I believe they have dropped by and decided to leave us alone. Too unknowing and uncaring for the rest of the galaxy...
(they may have hit Fox, so called news, and headed as far away as their warp drive could take them..)