
As many as 6B Earth-like planets in our galaxy, according to new estimates - Reedx
https://phys.org/news/2020-06-billion-earth-like-planets-galaxy.html
======
vgchh
The estimates for the number of stars in the galaxy continues to grow. Just a
few years I remember reading 100 billion stars, then it became 200 billion.
And in this article it's 400 billion. And supposedly there are hundreds of
billions of galaxies. One of the things I don't get is why did the universe
have to be so big and unfathomable and spectacular? If it isn't teeming with
life, feels like it's essentially one spectacular wasteland. Or alternatively,
perhaps we are in a simulation?

~~~
outworlder
> Or alternatively, perhaps we are in a simulation?

A relatively cheap one, considering that if this planet is the only one
inhabited, the other star systems can be approximated and don't require full
simulation.

Consider that time slows down when the speed is increased. This would be a
good thing to do to restrict the computational requirements. And there's
growing evidence that everything is quantized. Given that we probably can't
measure anything smaller than a Planck length, that's the simulation
resolution.

That's probably not what's going on (the simulation hypothesis could be the
'magnetism' of our era) but it is fun to think about.

~~~
ithkuil
Would if be computationally cheaper to just simulate our brains (our just one
brain. Yours!) to give us the illusion the universe is whatever it is
(quantized or not) rather than simulating the actual universe?

~~~
falcor84
What do you mean? Wouldn't you still need to simulate the world in pretty much
the same way to be able to feed consistent inputs into the simulated brain?

~~~
g-b-r
You're just _feeling_ like you're being fed consistent inputs :)

~~~
ithkuil
And if you ever feel otherwise, the simulation will be rolled back and fixed
:-)

------
guardiangod
Off topic but I just want to give a shoutout to the astrophysicists in UBC. As
an UBC undergrad alumni the physics department professors/TAs were probably
the most 'caring' profs I had.

Jaymie Matthews is a hilarious professor according to my sister, and I was
scheduled to take his classes...until he tried to save a random woman from an
attacker in LV, went into a coma for the better part of a year, and pretty
much missed all my classes.

------
snapetom
From my very naive understanding, isn't there a belief that habitable planets
are a bit more rare than we thought? Since most stars are red dwarves, the
tidal locking zone overlaps the Goldilocks zone. Neither the abstract nor the
phys.org article mentions tidal locking.

And don't forget the nasty flares that tend to fire up from red dwarves,
either.

~~~
forgotpwd16
Yes, the article (and most articles of the kind; from what I've read) don't
take into considerations those dynamical and astrophysical features. They
search for Earth-sized terrestrial planets in a zone where liquid water can
exist on their surface ("habitable" zone). Nevertheless even determining the
abundance of those planets is an ongoing problem.

------
tectonic
We're finding exoplanets at an incredible rate. See NASA's Exoplanet Archive
([https://exoplanetarchive.ipac.caltech.edu/](https://exoplanetarchive.ipac.caltech.edu/))
for the current 4164 known exoplanets.

Related: The Very Large Telescope (VLT) in Chile just confirmed the existence
of Proxima Centauri b, a roughly Earth-sized exoplanet in Proxima Centauri’s
habitable zone—the closest star to Earth, just 4 light-years away!
[https://www.universetoday.com/146262/powerful-telescope-
conf...](https://www.universetoday.com/146262/powerful-telescope-confirms-
theres-an-earth-sized-world-orbiting-proxima-centauri/)

Oh, and here's this topic's prerequisite xkcd:
[https://xkcd.com/786/](https://xkcd.com/786/)

(We write about exoplanets really frequently on
[https://orbitalindex.com](https://orbitalindex.com))

~~~
snapetom
Hate to be a Debbie Downer, but Proxima Centauri B is likely not habitable due
to its star blowing away its atmosphere.

[https://phys.org/news/2018-04-proxima-centauri-flare-
powerfu...](https://phys.org/news/2018-04-proxima-centauri-flare-powerful-
visible.html)

~~~
nieve
This was mentioned in the original article.

------
terrycody
I can't help but post this Youtube video, for those never saw it:

Star Size Comparison 2 (watched 28M times)

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GoW8Tf7hTGA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GoW8Tf7hTGA)

------
brummm
Many of them are bound to have life on them.

~~~
coldcode
The problem is we have only 1 data point. I think we ever get a second, then
the likelihood of lots is much more imaginable.

------
asdfman123
Awesome. We can't possibly mess all of them up!

(But sadly, the Milky Way is still over 50,000 light years across.)

~~~
falcor84
Don't underestimate us. I wouldn't be any money against human ingenuity in
this regard.

