Combining the data from NASA's Hubble Space Telescope and the prolific planet-hunting Kepler space observatory, scientists predict that more Earth-like planets will come to life outside of the Milky Way.
Previous theories suggested that there are 40 billion habitable Earth-size planets in the galaxy, the Wall Street journal reported. New findings suggests that there are more to come.
Earth isn't rare. It's just early. Twelve light years away from us lies an Earth-sized planet rotating along a sun-like star. Through the years, this planet may pool water - and soon after - life.
When gazing at the stars tonight, keep in mind that one in five sun-like stars has an Earth-sized planet nearby called a habitable zone. These planets receive as much sunlight as our planet does, Huffington Post reports.
When the solar system came into existence 4.6 billion years ago, only 8 percent of the potentially habitable planets that will ever form in the universe existed - 92 percent were waiting to be born until the last star burns out 100 trillion years from now.
Future life-giving planets are predicted to appear in dwarf galaxies and giant galactic clusters which have remaining gas for birthing stars and building accompanying planetary systems.
Unfortunately, our own Milky Way galaxy has used up much more of the gas available for future star formation, Eurekalert reports.
"Our main motivation was understanding the Earth's place in the context of the rest of the universe," said Peter Behroozi of the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) in Baltimore, according to Eurekalert. "Compared to all the planets that will ever form in the universe, the Earth is actually quite early."
As early residents of the universe, we are lucky to have developed powerful telescopes like Hubble to document our lineage from the Big Bang through the primordial galaxy.
The observational evidence for the Big Bang and cosmic revolution - traced in light and other electromagnetic radiation - will be lost in space expansion a trillion years from now. Future civilizations will be largely clueless on how universe began and evolved.
