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NASA's Kepler space telescope, now crippled and its four-year mission at an end, nevertheless provided enough data to answer its main research question: How many of the 200 billion stars in our galaxy have potentially habitable planets?
Based on a statistical analysis of all the Kepler observations, University of California, Berkeley, and University of Hawaii, Manoa, astronomers now estimate that one in five stars like the sun have planets about the size of Earth and a surface temperature conducive to life.
Given that about 20 percent of stars are sun-like, the researchers say, that amounts to several tens of billions of potentially habitable, Earth-size planets in the Milky Way Galaxy.
“When you look up at the thousands of stars in the night sky, the nearest sun-like star with an Earth-size planet in its habitable zone is probably only 12 light years away and can be seen with the naked eye. That is amazing,” said UC Berkeley graduate student Erik Petigura, who led the analysis of the Kepler data.
“It's been nearly 20 years since the discovery of the first extrasolar planet around a normal star. Since then, we have learned that most stars have planets of some size orbiting them, and that Earth-size planets are relatively common in close-in orbits that are too hot for life,” said Andrew Howard, a former UC Berkeley post-doctoral fellow who is now on the faculty of the Institute for Astronomy at the University of Hawaii. “With this result, we've come home, in a sense, by showing that planets like our Earth are relatively common throughout the Milky Way Galaxy.”
Petigura, Howard and Geoffrey Marcy, UC Berkeley professor of astronomy, will publish their analysis and findings this week in the online early edition of the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Earth-size may not mean habitable
“For NASA, this discovery is really important, because future missions will try to take an actual picture of a planet, and the size of the telescope they have to build depends on how close the nearest Earth-size planets are,” Howard said. “An abundance of planets orbiting nearby stars simplifies such follow-up missions.”
The team cautioned that Earth-size planets in orbits about the size of Earth's are not necessarily hospitable to life, even if they reside in the habitable zone around a star where the temperature is not too hot and not too cold.
“Some may have thick atmospheres, making it so hot at the surface that DNA-like molecules would not survive. Others may have rocky surfaces that could harbor liquid water suitable for living organisms,” Marcy said. “We don't know what range of planet types and their environments are suitable for life.”
Last week, however, Howard, Marcy and their colleagues provided hope that many such planets actually are rocky and could support liquid water. They reported that one Earth-size planet discovered by Kepler – albeit, a planet with a likely temperature of 2,000 Kelvin, which is far too hot for life as we know it – is the same density as Earth and most likely composed of rock and iron, like Earth.
“This gives us some confidence that when we look out into the habitable zone, the planets Erik is describing may be Earth-size, rocky planets,” Howard said.
Transiting planets
NASA launched the Kepler space telescope in 2009 to look for planets outside the solar system that cross in front of, or transit, their stars, which causes a slight diminution – about one hundredth of 1 percent – in the star's brightness.
From among the 150,000 stars photographed every 30 minutes for four years, NASA's Kepler team reported more than 3,000 planet candidates. Many of these are much larger than Earth – ranging from large planets with thick atmospheres, like Neptune, to gas giants like Jupiter – or in orbits so close to their stars that they are roasted.
To sort them out, Petigura and his colleagues are using the Keck telescopes in Hawaii to obtain spectra of as many stars as possible. This will help them determine each star's true brightness and calculate the diameter of each transiting planet, with an emphasis on Earth-diameter planets.
Independently, Petigura, Howard and Marcy focused on the 42,000 stars that are like the sun or slightly cooler and smaller, and found 603 candidate planets orbiting them.
Only 10 of these were Earth-size, that is, one to two times the diameter of Earth and orbiting their star at a distance where they are heated to lukewarm temperatures suitable for life.
The team's definition of habitable is that a planet receives between four times and one-quarter the amount of light that Earth receives from the sun.
A census of extrasolar planets
What distinguishes the team's analysis from previous analyses of Kepler data is that they subjected Petigura's planet-finding algorithms to a battery of tests in order to measure how many habitable zone, Earth-size planets they missed.
Petigura actually introduced fake planets into the Kepler data in order to determine which ones his software could detect and which it couldn't.
“What we're doing is taking a census of extrasolar planets, but we can't knock on every door. Only after injecting these fake planets and measuring how many we actually found could we really pin down the number of real planets that we missed,” Petigura said.
Accounting for missed planets, as well as the fact that only a small fraction of planets are oriented so that they cross in front of their host star as seen from Earth, allowed them to estimate that 22 percent of all sun-like stars in the galaxy have Earth-size planets in their habitable zones.
“The primary goal of the Kepler mission was to answer the question, ‘When you look up in the night sky, what fraction of the stars that you see have Earth-size planets at lukewarm temperatures so that water would not be frozen into ice or vaporized into steam, but remain a liquid, because liquid water is now understood to be the prerequisite for life?’” Marcy said. “Until now, no one knew exactly how common potentially habitable planets were around sun-like stars in the galaxy.”
“If the stars in the Kepler field are representative of stars in the solar neighborhood, … then the nearest (Earth-size) planet is expected to orbit a star that is less than 12 light-years from Earth and can be seen by the unaided eye,” the researchers wrote in their paper. “Future instrumentation to image and take spectra of these Earths need only observe a few dozen nearby stars to detect a sample of Earth-size planets residing in the habitable zones of their host stars.”
The research was funded by UC Berkeley and the National Science Foundation, with the assistance of the W. M. Keck Observatory and NASA.
Robert Sanders writes for the UC Berkeley News Center.
LAKE COUNTY, Calif. – Lake County Animal Care and Control has several large and small breed dogs available to go to new homes this week.
The dogs include Labrador Retriever, boxer and pit bull mixes, as well as mixes of Chihuahua and Pomeranian. They range in age from 11 weeks to 3 years.
Dogs that are adopted from Lake County Animal Care and Control are either neutered or spayed, microchipped and, if old enough, given a rabies shot and county license before being released to their new owner. License fees do not apply to residents of the cities of Lakeport or Clearlake.
If you're looking for a new companion, visit the shelter. There are many great pets hoping you'll choose them.
In addition to the animals featured here, all adoptable animals in Lake County can be seen here: http://bit.ly/Z6xHMb .
The following dogs at the Lake County Animal Care and Control shelter have been cleared for adoption (additional dogs on the animal control Web site not listed are still “on hold”).
Male Chihuahua mix
This male Chihuahua mix is 1 year old.
He has a short white coat, weighs 9 pounds and has been neutered.
He's in kennel No. 3, ID No. 38357.
Pomeranian mix
This male Pomeranian mix is 3 years old.
He weighs 12 pounds and has a short coat. Shelter staff did not report if he has been altered.
Find him in kennel No. 5, ID No. 38280.
Female Chihuahua mix
This female Chihuahua mix is 2 years old.
She has a short white and brown coat, weighs 11 pounds and has been spayed.
She's in kennel No. 8, ID No. 38258.
Female Labrador Retriever mix
This female Labrador Retriever is 1 year old.
She has a short black coat and weighs nearly 56 pounds. Shelter staff did not report if she has been altered.
She's in kennel No. 9, ID No. 38257.
Male boxer-pit bull terrier mix
This male boxer-pit bull terrier mix is 1 year old.
He weighs 72 pounds, has a short brown brindle coat and he's been neutered.
Find him in kennel No. 16, ID No. 35680.
Female Labrador Retriever mix
This female Labrador Retriever is 11 weeks old.
She has a short black coat and has been spayed.
She's in kennel No. 18, ID No. 38389.
To fill out an adoption application online visit http://www.co.lake.ca.us/Government/Directory/Animal_Care_And_Control/Adopt/Dog___Cat_Adoption_Application.htm .
Lake County Animal Care and Control is located at 4949 Helbush in Lakeport, next to the Hill Road Correctional Facility.
Office hours are Monday through Friday, 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., and 1 p.m. to 3 p.m., Saturday. The shelter is open from 10:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Monday through Friday and on Saturday from 1 p.m. to 3 p.m.
Visit the shelter online at http://www.co.lake.ca.us/Government/Directory/Animal_Care_And_Control.htm .
For more information call Lake County Animal Care and Control at 707-263-0278.
Email Elizabeth Larson at
MIDDLETOWN, Calif. – The Lake County/City Area Planning Council (APC) and Caltrans on Wednesday, Nov. 13, are hosting the third community meeting on a project to identify potential transportation improvements on State Route 29 from the Napa County line to State Route 53.
The meeting will be held from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. at the Middletown High School Multi-Use Facility.
The project’s purpose is to identify improvements that will make area travel on State Route 29 safer and more convenient, reduce congestion and address other local community needs.
The project is scheduled for completion late this year.
The Nov. 13 meeting will provide area residents an opportunity to learn about and provide feedback on specific proposed transportation improvements, and will include an update on current and planned Caltrans SR 29 South Corridor maintenance projects.
Representatives from the Lake APC, Caltrans and project consultant team also will be available to answer questions and discuss proposed improvements in an informal format.
More information is available at www.lakecountysr29.com .
LOWER LAKE, Calif. – After a full day of firefighting on a wildland fire near Lower Lake, officials said Saturday evening that containment on the incident had reached the 50-percent mark.
The Cantwell Fire broke out Friday afternoon off of Cantwell Ranch Road south of Morgan Valley Road, as Lake County News has reported.
In addition to the increase in containment, Cal Fire reported Saturday evening that the size estimate had been rolled back once more. The fire's size was placed at 120 acres, down from the 150-acre estimate given earlier in the day.
The fire destroyed an outbuilding on Friday, but no other structures reported to have been in the fire's vicinity were damaged Saturday, according to Cal Fire's evening report.
Approximately 285 personnel were said to have remained on scene on Saturday. Other resources included 30 fire engines, 10 fire crews, six dozers and three water tenders.
Initial reports said the incident was touched off by a pickup that caught fire. Cal Fire said the cause remains under investigation.
Email Elizabeth Larson at
MIDDLETOWN, Calif. – High school girls soccer playoffs resume Saturday with the Middletown Mustangs and Clear Lake Cardinals representing Lake County in North Coast Section action.
Middletown repeated as NCL1 champions this season with an 18-2 record and are seeded No. 2 for the section tournament.
As NCL1 champs, the Mustangs earned a bye for the first round. They face seventh seed Calistoga (9-12) at Bill Foltmer Stadium in Middletown Saturday at 7 p.m.
Early season losses at Sonoma Academy (No. 1 seed) and at Cloverdale (No. 3 seed) were the only blemishes on their record.
The Cloverdale loss was avenged at the end of the season with the Mustangs winning 3-2 at home and then 3-1 in Cloverdale.
Middletown hopes to eventually meet Sonoma Academy in the tournament finals on Nov. 16; a win would have Middletown repeat as North Coast Section champions.
Clear Lake High School's team came into the playoffs seeded No. 6 with a 14-7 record.
The Cardinals advanced to Saturday's second round by beating St. Helena (No. 11 seed) in Wednesday's first round.
Clear Lake travels to Cloverdale Saturday for what should be an exciting match against a tough Eagles team.
Action begins at 7 p.m. at Cloverdale High School.
The winner advances to the third round (Nov. 13, to be announced) against the victor of Saturday's Middletown-Calistoga match.
LOWER LAKE, Calif. – Firefighters on Friday evening increased the containment on a wildland fire that was sparked earlier in the day by a burning vehicle.
The Cantwell Fire is burning south of Morgan Valley Road and east of Highway 29 in a difficult-to-access area outside of Lower Lake.
First reported at 1:42 p.m. when a pickup was reported to have caught fire in an area off Cantwell Ranch Road, the fire quickly moved into brush and ran up a nearby ridge, according to fire officials.
On Friday the fire destroyed one outbuilding, with six to 12 other structures threatened, Cal Fire reported.
There were no road closures or evacuations reported, Cal Fire said.
Shortly before 5 p.m. Friday Cal Fire had estimated the fire was 200 acres, an estimate that it reduced to 150 acres by 8:30 p.m.
At that point, Cal Fire estimated the fire was 30-percent contained.
Fire agencies from around Lake County joined Cal Fire in battling the blaze, with out-of-county Cal Fire units also responding.
Cal Fire said a total of 285 personnel were on scene Friday night, along with 30 engines, 10 fire crews, six dozers and three water tenders.
Email Elizabeth Larson at