Billions of Lonely Planets, Adrift in Space

[i]Astronomers said Wednesday that space is littered with hundreds of billions of planets that have been ejected from the planetary systems that gave them birth and either are going their own lonely ways or are only distantly bound to stars at least as 10 times as far away as the Sun is from the Earth.

"It’s a bit of a surprise," said David Bennett, a Notre Dame astronomer, who was part of the team. Before this research, it was thought that only about 10 or 20 percent of stars harbored Jupiter-mass planets. Now it seems as if the planets outnumber the stars.[i]

This is very interesting news and definitely increases the chances of intelligent life on other planets, or even life of some form. This makes me even more eager to crunch data from the Green Bank Telescope.

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"By faith we understand that the universe was formed at God's command, so that what is seen was not made out of what was visible". Hebrews 11.3

Nibiru :-D

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Amazing!

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2011/05/110518-planets-jupiters-worlds-space-science-nature/
Alien Planets Outnumber Stars, Study Says
"Important" discovery: Jupiter-like runaways common in our galaxy.


If you look to the stars tonight, consider this: No matter how innumerable they may seem, there are far more than stars lurking out there in the darkness, a new study suggests.

The study uncovered a whole new class of worlds: Jupiter-like gas giants that have escaped the gravitational bonds of their parent stars and are freely roaming space.

Jupiter and Saturn have roughly 60 moons each, plus there are the 8 planets we are familiar with in our solar system. So our solar system roughly has about 150 decent size planets or moons orbiting it. Along with countless other asteroids and comets.

Well i guess the news articles suggest all the other stars have similar numbers of planets and moons orbiting them. Its good news.

John.

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...and amazingly, even the 9th planet in our solar system has a moon.

Martin

...and amazingly, even the 9th planet in our solar system has a moon.

Martin

Depending on who you talk to, Pluto isn't a planet :P

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"By faith we understand that the universe was formed at God's command, so that what is seen was not made out of what was visible". Hebrews 11.3

Depending on who you talk to, Pluto isn't a planet :P

Sadly, that is true.

Martin

@Chris: Yes, a moon and some rocks. :)


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