10% of solar systems in universe are like our solar system

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Astronomers determined how common our solar system is:
ScienceDaily - In all the universe, just 10 percent of solar systems are like ours

Given our limited detection and observation techniques that is an unwarranted conclusion. How many stars with exo-planets have we seen, two hundred? How many stars in the Galaxy? Billyuns and billyuns according to Carl Sagan.

ridiculous! That is junk science.

ruveyn

/\ Much like the Drake equation

Maybe I've missed something extremely obvious, and apologies if i have.

But why does the title only say about 10% of systems being like ours, but in the text it says its 15% (twice i believe it states that)?

I don't know about anybody else but I think that is a fairly big difference in number of star systems

According to the article, they use a statistical method which I find questionable at best, which includes a number of what they call "robust" assumptions, and basing their conclusions on the fact that out of some 200 exo-systems examined so far, only one had two gas-giant planets in outer orbits. This ignores the fact that the method used to discover most of those planets, examining wobbles in stellar orbits and planetary occlusions of parent stars, is biased toward finding exactly those sorts of exo-planets they have decreed "most common". Sadly, if we want to get actual observations of stellar systems like our own, we're going to need more sensitive instruments - one proposal calls for an array of telescopes beyond the orbit of Jupiter, to take it fairly far out of the Sun's gravity well (to minimize gravitic distortion of observations). That doesn't seem likely to happen any time soon...

I was also wondering about that.

Amen to that.

Isn't the universe infinetly expanding too?

If so, wouldn't that have a sort of negative impact on trying to compound statistics like that?

Compelling, but the news story is based upon an orginal research document, referenced in news story. So, that research journal referenced would be worth the read! Lab Pet neither dismisses nor accepts; just reads with a skeptical eye, yet thoughtful. We certainly can, and do, extrapolate by mathematical modeling and that's what the article is about.

Go NASA! Thanks for sharing, Scientist.

I would doubt 1%, and that still leaves billions and billions of worlds, where reptile life evolved.

The good is they are far enough away that we will not meet them.

This is old news, the ratio of suns like ours has been long known.

If one in a thousand has planets like ours, the universe is overpopulated.

I love Carl Sagan.

The Drake equation is fine, it's the constants that are lacking!

They don't state systems like ours.

Only "systems with two gas giants, which could be similar to our own planetary system", which is obvious enough to be above all out skepticism.

There is apparently a fairly ordinary planetary system right here, and a fairly good sized galaxy which it is floating in, odds are against this being a freak incident.

The Drake Equations are pure bupkis. There is no way of verifying them empirically.

ruveyn

That statement make no sense.

I could take some unknown, decide on some 'related factors' and make an equation, doesn't make it true.

I can't believe any scientist would take it seriously, it begs belief.

if you have a star and one planet, that sounds like a 'system' to me...

Actually, I read an interview with Sagan once, and contrary to popular belief, he'd never actually said 'billions and billions'...

Whether we have Menshara-class planets (just kidding... in a lot of solar systems hasn't been conclusively proven; the distances are too great, and resolution too crude at this point. But they are a lot more likely than 20 years ago...

Carl Sagan is Awesome