Every Star Has Atleast One Planet.

[kochman]

I saw this too, and it is interesting as heck.

So, of those planets, how many are habitable?
How many are or were inhabited by intelligent life?
When are they going to find us and squash us if of superior intelligence (capable of reaching Earth) and potentially similar ruthlessness?

Do they have any similar religious beliefs/experiences?

 

[Leoreth]

You make many jumps of conclusion there.

 

[kochman]

You make many jumps of conclusion there.

I didn't make any... I asked questions that intrigue me.
No conclusions have been made (other than they would potential squash us I suppose, but I don't find that to be too far out).

 

[betazed]

To me the fact that there are at least as many planets as stars (and most probably many more planets than stars) always looked more logical. Because

(a) It is easier to form a smaller body than a larger body. There are more red dwarfs than there are medium stellar mass stars. There are more medium stellar mass stars then giants and there are more giants than hypergiants (which are very rare). So if we extrapolate this in the other direction there are more jupiters than red dwarfs and more earthlike planets than jupiters. In our solar system too there are many more smaller bodies than larger bodies.

(b) The typical solar systems formation process (although we need to re-visit those) almost always leads to planets. So it is doubtful that almost any star formed without a planetary system.

(c) Last but not the least, the moment our observation process becomes refined enough to see a typical planet type we find tons of those! Think about it. Even back in 1994 Geoff Marcy could have found hot jupiters if only he would have been looking for it. But he was not. He was looking for earths. He did not have the technology to find earths using the Doppler shift. Doppler shift finds hot jupiters easily so we have found those galore. Kepler & Corot is designed to find smaller planets and we have thousands of KOIs now.

All this tells me that when we have enough data and technology to find earthlike planets in habitable zones we will find that those are even more common than hot jupiters.

 

[betazed]

And while we are at it...

http://www.universetoday.com/92547/...ds-two-more-exoplanets-orbiting-binary-stars/