The Kepler space telescope has now found 68 exoplanet candidates that are Earth sized
and 5 of them are in the habitable zone of their parent star. Another 49 planets exist in the habitable zone of their parent star, but are much larger than Earth. However, this doesn't rule out the possibility that moons around these larger planets could have liquid water and environments conducive to life as we know it. NASA press release here:
NASA Finds Earth-size Planet Candidates in the Habitable Zone | NASA
Anyway, what impact do you think this will have with respect to the "Privileged Planet" hypothesis and other arguments based on the Anthropic Principle? Kepler is only able to scan a tiny portion of the stars in our galaxy, so what does this tell us about the population of planets throughout the rest of our galaxy and the distribution of Earth like planets across the entire universe?
Suggested forums: Origin of Life or Cosmology
Edited by Taq, : No reason given.
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